


The Minister

by AconitumNapellus



Category: Mission: Impossible (TV 1966)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-23
Updated: 2013-07-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 03:12:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/895112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barnstadt is a country on the edge of the iron curtain. Jim's mission is to see that when it does choose an alliance, it chooses the West rather than the communist East. Jim, Rollin, Cinnamon, Barney and Willie era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There was something particularly pleasant about standing at the bedroom window at dawn and watching the sun rising over the East River. From this height Jim could watch the golden light catching the spars of bridges and masts of boats and glinting from the myriad windows in Brooklyn. He leant against the chill glass and watched a boat moving slowly, a dark figure unfurling the sails and letting them catch the wind. He itched, sometimes, to be out on a boat like that, even with the greyness of the water and the sprinkle of snow that lay on the streets and ledges of buildings. Life didn’t afford him much chance for sailing, despite the white-sailed sloop he kept down at the quay.

He stirred himself. The chill of winter was pushing straight through the glass and into his skin. Time for a shower and to get dressed. He’d light the fire when he got downstairs. It was the kind of morning for hot coffee, and perhaps a pastry warmed in the oven. Besides, there was no point lounging up here in his pyjamas when he had a mission to organise. He smiled at that. Perhaps it would be warmer in Barnstadt. He doubted it, though. Eastern European winters had never been kind things.

Cinnamon, Rollin, Barney and Willy. That would be his team. They almost always were his team. He had almost twenty folks on the books, but when it came down to it those four were simply the best. They were reliable. Barney was a downright genius when it came to anything technical. Rollin was a magician at disguise, and he could be as cold as that East River if he needed to be. Cinnamon too could be cold as ice when she had to. He worried sometimes about getting a woman into these things, but he had seen her raise a gun and shoot a man between the eyes without flinching. And then there was Willy. It was easy to underestimate Willy. The gentle giant, the strong man with few words. Willy was indispensable, reliable and loyal to the core. People trusted Willy’s open looks, and therein lay his ability to deceive. His mind worked just as fast as any of them and he could turn his hand to almost anything – he just didn’t feel need to talk about it.

The heat of the shower pushed the winter cold away and Jim felt more awake by the time he was dressed and moving out of the bedroom, thinking of coffee. He murmured under his breath as he walked down the stairs, ‘Kann ich bitte eine Tasse Kaffee haben? Undein Brötchen?’

He didn’t really need to practice his German. Every other assignment seemed to send him to a country where the language was needed or useful. But it was the tiniest of slips that could ruin a mission. He had often had cause to thank his German grandmother for her insistence in talking in that language to him and having him talk it back to her. He had hated it when he was six, but now he was grateful for the ability to think in the language as well as speak in it.

He missed his Oma more than he missed sailing. It had been almost thirty years since she died, and he still missed those conversations in German and the food she cooked and the smell of her perfume.

Well, one day he would retire from all this, and get plenty of chance for sailing. He could do nothing about Oma except remember her and thank for the gift she had left him with. And he needed to get downstairs and start to plan this mission.

******

A chess board, black and white pieces sitting mutely apart. Coffee, black and strong, and a flaking, fragrant pastry on a white plate. A pad of paper resting beneath his left hand, and a pencil beside it, ready to jot down his thoughts.

So often that was the recipe for constructive thoughts. The coffee woke him up and the pastry quietened his stomach. The chess brought discipline to his mind, made him more analytical, more ordered in his thinking. Sometimes he imposed characteristics of the enemy – because there always was an enemy – on certain chess pieces, and as he played against himself he began to form a deeper understanding of both their psychology and of his own. And slowly he began to make notes on the pad of paper, the pencil sloping in his left hand, the coffee in his right, and gradually the plan took shape.

He touched a finger to the black bishop on the board in front of him. That was Bauer. Georg Bauer, politician, member of the far left Volkspartei. Barnstadt was crawling towards democracy, split from Germany after the ravages of the last world war, so close to the Iron Curtain that you could practically smell it. All it needed was for a guy like Bauer to get in on his promises of more jobs and more money and better welfare for the needy, and it would be swallowed up by the East as if it had never existed. The Secretary wanted the US to preserve its access to the country because of its strategic closeness to Russia and the Communist bloc. Jim’s sympathies lay with the people and the freedoms that they would lose if they voted Bauer into power.

The black bishop symbolised the man aptly. Jim had done plenty of intense research in the last twenty-four hours. Bauer was a family man with a beautiful blonde wife and three adorable children in their early teens. He was a moraliser and a health freak. He neither smoked nor drank and could be seen every morning exercising in the city park. He was not the most powerful man in the country. He was not the President, nor yet the Prime Minister, but he was seeking to move up through those positions until he could become a dictator over the eleven million souls that resided in his small land.

Jim laughed darkly, taking another mouthful of his coffee and pushing a sheaf of papers aside to look over another page of notes. Ten brothels in the city and a further thirty around the country were owned by Bauer. The places were usually fronted by nightclubs, rife with heavy drinking and sleazy entertainment, and Jim had it on reliable authority from a US agent that it was not unusual to see Bauer in his own clubs, downing hard liquor and watching the floor show with avid interest. Bauer was responsible for the abduction and import of hundreds of young woman to work in his clubs and brothels. And somehow, by Bauer’s employment of a certain amount of disguise and discretion, all this was kept close and under the carpet, never leaking to the press or his political rivals. The only element of the underworld that seeped through into Bauer’s political life was the money he reaped from it. His political campaigns were almost entirely financed by the revenue from his brothels.

There was something about that kind of man that Jim despised. Political aspirations were one thing. Everyone had different political views and he knew that he couldn’t change the entire world, man by man, no matter what the Secretary thought. It was the taking advantage of the weak and the needy that made him sick to his stomach. Taking women in desperate straits and trapping them into prostitution. Abducting women and forcing them to work in brothels in fear of their lives if they attempted escape. Pretending to be good and wholesome and perfect in public life when in fact you were low-level scum. Those were the things that made Jim angry. If he could take Bauer down, hundreds of women would be freed from his clutches and a misguided populace would be free of him too.

Jim leant back in his chair and blew smoke out through his mouth in a steady stream. He got to his feet and stalked over to the window, gazing out over the buildings around. There was more traffic moving down in the streets now, turning the light fall of snow into dark slush. There were people walking along the sidewalks, mostly clad in dark suits and hats, but occasionally there was a flash of the brightest pink or red or turquoise as some fashionable lady or misguided elderly woman walked amongst them. He took another mouthful of coffee, letting the sights of people and cars blur as he let a plan begin to form out of the tangle of facts in his brain.

Bauer, the black bishop. Adolf Rubens, the president – the white king on his chess board, almost irrelevant for now in his plans. He would be irrelevant until Bauer attempted to take his place, and if Jim was successful he would never get that far in his political aspirations. Rubens had a definite leaning toward democracy.

He was standing over the chess board again, his eyes on the queens, black and white. Mrs Bauer? She had hardly any place in this either. She and her children lived at the family retreat, a place out in the mountains. She was far away from the politics that her husband manipulated.

But then there was Liesl. Liesl Weismuller. She was another little detail that Jim had gained knowledge of from their agent in the country. Ostensibly she was Bauer’s secretary – but Jim knew that Bauer _had_ a secretary, a very capable man named Kaufmann. But Bauer also had an attachment to a certain type of woman, a woman in the image of a girl he had once been involved with, who had died years before. Year after year he hand-picked women from the brothels that he ran, taken more as a concubine than an assistant. Bauer changed these women as soon as he got tired of them, as soon as they failed to live up to the image of his lost love, and Liesl had already been living in his town residence for six months. There were rumours that he was searching for a new woman, and Jim had a hunch that Cinnamon was just his type – or could be made to be his type.

He toppled the bishop with one finger, then looked down, startled, as if he had not realised he had even been touching the carved wooden piece. Inside his mind things were falling into place. The woman. The vice. The money. The woman could get close to him. The vice would undo him. The money was the rug that Jim could pull out from under him. It wouldn’t be simple – these things never were – but it would be possible.

******

They were all gathered in his apartment. Rollin, Cinnamon, Barney and Willy. Rollin always looked as if he were only thinly veiling the excitement at times like these. He didn’t like inactivity, unless it was the kind of inactivity you experienced sitting in an armchair late at night, with a drink, a cigarette, and quiet conversation. Jim understood how frustrated Rollin got between missions – he felt the same. Every time he got back Jim sighed relief at having got out alive, but after a day had passed he was itching to hear the phone ring, to get the call to a dead drop for a new assignment. Rollin was the same. Between missions Rollin used clubs and girls and music for his excitement, but it didn’t compare to the very real danger of loaded guns and espionage.

‘I’ve rented us two apartments in the same block,’ Jim was saying, sliding the documents over his desk towards the gathered team. ‘Less suspicious than us all bunking together. Cinnamon, while we’re in the apartment you’re my wife and Rollin’s your brother. Barney, Willy, you’re roommates down the hall. Construction workers working on the new stadium they’re building just out of town. That’ll give you plenty of cover for coming and going in the van. They’re not fancy rooms, but they’ll do for the time we’re there. People are always coming and going in these places and a couple of newcomers won’t be noticed.’

‘Looks perfect,’ Rollin said with an edge of sarcasm, dropping the documents back on the desk after scanning the contents. ‘Rats and cockroaches supplied for free.’

Jim snorted, returning the papers to the pile. ‘What about the flights, Rollin?’

‘I’ve booked them into Dresden. The visas weren’t too easy, but Barney’s sorted East German papers that will allow us to be able to drive over the border.’

‘I’ve also printed us all the papers we need to pass as ordinary Barnstadt citizens,’ Barney said, handing a sheaf of folded papers and passports over to Jim. ‘Plus Rollin’s international press permissions and identification as a reporter for the Berlin Daily. We’ve got all we need to get into the country and to pass in our various roles when there.’ He smiled. ‘As long as we keep each identification separate, that is, and don’t get confused.’

‘We won’t,’ Jim said confidently, leafing through the documents and then handing out the appropriate ones to each member of the team. ‘Have you devised a means of getting your hands on that money, Barney?’

Barney nodded succinctly. ‘I think so. Bauer keeps all of his funds in one place, in the safe at his biggest club. There’s a weak point at the back of the building where the sewers come under the foundations. Willy and I will set up as road workers a block away. We can drill into the safe from below and take the money out that way. Once we’ve got it in the van we’ll launder it through various banks, paying it into accounts owned by Bauer’s opposition as charitable donations. Even if he twigs he can’t do anything because he won’t risk revealing where the money comes from. He’s not supposed to have any connections with that club, or anywhere like it.’

‘Perfect, Barney,’ Jim nodded. He looked up at Cinnamon. ‘And are you ready, Cinnamon?’ he asked with a little more hesitancy in his voice.

She smiled and nodded. She took a lipstick out of her purse and began to apply it smoothly to her lips, then turned the gold case carefully to Jim to show him the pinhole lens.

‘I can take sixty pictures with this,’ she said. ‘Enough to incriminate him. I also have a ring with a knock-out spike, just in case, and a gun that looks like a perfume atomiser.’

‘Cinnamon, you’re going to have to – expose yourself – to a lot,’ Jim said doubtfully. ‘Bauer’s personal secretary is not – ’

‘Not just a secretary, I know,’ she said. ‘More of a concubine. A high class prostitute.’ She nodded. ‘I’m prepared, Jim. I understand what I’m letting myself into.’

‘As long as you do,’ Jim said. He tapped the stub of his cigarette out in the ashtray, and slipped another from his pocket. ‘Because I’m going to have to sell you to him, and I do not like that at all.’


	2. Chapter 2

Jim had been right. It was just as cold in Eastern Europe as it had been in New York. There was a little less of that bone-penetrating cold, perhaps. New York was practically on the sea, whereas Dresden was hundreds of miles from the European coast. But there were still drifts of snow on the ground and still those heavy white clouds blanketing the sky, and the breath still fogged out of his mouth as he walked across the tarmac toward the terminal.

He jingled the car keys in his pocket. Their contacts in East Germany had set them up with a suitable sedan and a utilitarian white van containing all the equipment that they would need, neatly disguised as tools and equipment belonging to migrant labourers. The papers were all in order to allow them to pass over the border, and everything was set.

Willy and Barney were somewhere behind him, but Jim didn’t look round. On the plane and now they had stayed in their separate groupings. It was best that they didn’t acknowledge each other publicly until they were settled in their lodgings. They were perfectly capable of looking after themselves.

He glanced at Rollin instead, and smiled. Rollin was carrying Cinnamon’s flight bag. Perhaps Jim should have been since she was posing as his wife, but he didn’t feel like arguing. After the all-night flight and the six hour time difference all he really felt like doing was drinking coffee or dropping into a soft bed. He didn’t even want to face the luggage carousel, let alone immigration. It was too bad that they had to drive into Barnstadt, but the place had no large airports and there had been no easy way to fly in without arousing suspicion.

‘I’ll take first turn behind the wheel,’ Cinnamon told him, holding up her hand as both Jim and Rollin began to argue. ‘No. I slept more on the plane than both of you. Besides, I always like driving in Germany.’

Jim had barely noticed that she had switched to fluent German now she was on the tarmac until he let her words run through his mind. He smiled and nodded, responding in kind.

‘That’s fine with me. It’d be a pity if we died in a road accident before we ever got across the border, huh?’

‘All right,’ Rollin acknowledged. ‘I’ll go second, Jim last. Maybe we can all catch up on some sleep that way. And the others – ’

‘Will be fine,’ Jim said, resisting the impulse to look over his shoulder. ‘Willy never seems to notice the time difference. I don’t know how he does it.’

‘Vitamins,’ Rollin said with a laugh. ‘He puts everything down to vitamins. He cornered me last week and tried to convert me.’

‘If he does me I might just take him up on it,’ Jim smiled tiredly. ‘Ah well.’

He looked up at the entrance to the terminal. Just a few more hurdles to cross, and he could sink into much needed sleep.

******

Time to sleep and time to eat and time for his body to crawl back from the cloying tendrils of jet lag that made his mind slow and sluggish. He always allowed time for recovery as long as the mission allowed it. There was no sense sending men into a situation in which they had to be constantly on the ball if half of their thoughts were in another time zone.

He rolled onto his side in the narrow bed, half-unconsciously pulling the sheets and blankets further up over his head. They were lucky this was an old fashioned place, twin beds in the double room and a single in the other. Cinnamon was sleeping in the single room, and this way he and Rollin didn’t have to share a bed. Rollin always tossed and turned too much for comfortable sleeping.

‘Shaken it off yet, Jim?’

He rubbed his eyes blearily and pushed the blankets down again. He could smell coffee. Rollin was standing there, a cup in his outstretched hand.

‘Shaken it off?’ he repeated.

Yeah, just about,’ Jim grunted, pushing himself up in the bed. ‘What time is it?’

‘About eleven a.m., local time. Cinnamon went out for supplies. There’s bread and salami if you fancy it. And plenty of coffee,’ Rollin added, proffering the cup again.

Jim smiled, taking the cup. Rollin’s Brooklyn accent had been pushed away by self-education and acting lessons, but he still said _coffee_ with a shadow of the Brooklyn pronunciation.

‘Thanks,’ he said, taking a mouthful and letting the caffeine sink through his system.

He ran a hand through his hair and swung his legs out of bed.

‘Better get moving,’ he said. ‘Bauer won’t cause a scandal without our help.’

‘More’s the pity,’ Rollin added.

‘More’s the pity,’ Jim nodded. He looked down at his pale blue pyjamas, then took another mouthful of coffee. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’ He lifted the cup toward Rollin, and smiled. ‘Thanks for this. I needed it.’

Half an hour later he was sitting at the small and chipped table in the main room, his hands around another cup of coffee and his eyes drifting to the view of the snowy street below through the grime-flecked window. There were very few people out in this weather and those who were, were anonymous bundles of coats and scarves and thick fur hats. The cold was permeating the glass and dropping to the floor in waves, creeping across the room despite the gas fire steadily burning only a few feet away.

‘Cinnamon, you have everything you need?’ he asked, raising his eyes to the woman opposite him.

She was impeccably dressed, as usual. She looked about as far from a prostitute as a woman could. Or perhaps, he corrected himself, as far from the kind of street-corner, down-and-out prostitute that he associated with the business. A little redressing and she would suit Bauer’s tastes perfectly. He wouldn’t want to keep her in the stables with the rest of his property.

‘I have everything I need,’ she nodded, a kind of sympathetic patience lightening her eyes. ‘You worry too much, Jim. I volunteered.’

Jim made a noncommittal noise over his coffee. He lit another cigarette and inhaled the hot, clean smoke, and felt a little better. He was good at looking calm and in control of these missions, but that didn’t stop him worrying about his people.

‘Besides, I’ll be hanging around the place keeping an eye on her,’ Rollin put in with his lopsided smile, patting a hand against the revolver in his pocket.

‘Not so much that you spook him,’ Jim warned. Rollin was as protective over Cinnamon as he was, or perhaps more so. ‘At least, not yet.’

‘Just enough to soak up the atmosphere,’ Rollin said, his grin widening.

******

The club was dark and warm, the air hazed with smoke and the scent of alcohol. It was a welcome contrast to the bright light glittering from the snowy streets outside. Jim pushed through the door with his hand firmly around Cinnamon’s upper arm, his lips set tight together in a determined line.

‘But really, I don’t want to – ’ she was protesting in a tremulous voice. ‘Please. Please, Otto.’

‘I told you to call me Mr Baum,’ he said roughly, giving her a shake. ‘Now, come on. You need this money. You owe me – and I _own_ you.’

Her eyes were wide with fear. Jim was glad he knew it was all an act. She was good at the scared-kitten look, and it would have melted him had he not known better. Even when it was not a member of his team, someone he knew was acting, he had learnt over the years to mistrust such expressions deeply. It was too easy for a woman to manipulate a man with wide eyes and a terrified look.

‘Come on,’ he said, pulling roughly at her arm again, and she tottered forward into the dark and the drifting smoke. They reached the bar and he rapped his knuckles sharply on the counter to get the barman’s attention. ‘Mr Bauer,’ he said, raising his voice above the clamorous music from the stage show. ‘I want to see him.’

The man looked lazily at him for a moment, wiping a smear off a glass with a white cloth. Then he said, ‘And do you have an appointment?’

‘With what I’m bringing him?’ Jim asked, keeping his voice arrogant and loud. ‘I don’t need an appointment.’

The man’s eyes travelled from Jim’s face to Cinnamon’s, and back again.

‘What name shall I give?’

‘Baum,’ Jim said. ‘Otto Baum. I wrote him last week that I had some merchandise that would interest him.’

The barman’s eyes lingered on Cinnamon again, more lustfully this time. She affected a shudder, and dropped her gaze.

‘Come through to the back room,’ he said, putting the glass down on the bar. ‘I’ll see if he’s available.’

******

Of course, Bauer was available. Jim could see the gleam of his eye through the cracked open door even before the man came in. Bauer surveyed Cinnamon through that sliver and made his judgement before making himself known. And then he came in, swaggering and confident, his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face.

‘Well, Baum. What have you brought me?’ he asked.

Cinnamon looked small on her chair, terrified to her core. She was clutching at her small valise rather than putting it on the floor, holding it as if it were a comforter. He wished in a way that she was not so good at her job. In the brighter light of this back room it was obvious that her face was drained of colour, and now she had removed her coat the bruises on her arm were obvious too. They had constructed this carefully. It would look obvious that Otto Baum was rough with her, that she was scared of him. Bauer would be congenial, would offer her a refuge. It was his psychology to do so, and Jim was always silently amused by how rigidly people followed their own psychology.

The bruises on her upper arm were real. She had asked Jim to do them, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to. She had threatened to do it herself, but in the end Rollin had done it, cloaking it in a mock rough seduction that had left them both laughing and gasping on the rug before the gas fire, his mouth open in a breathless grin and her eyes watering from the pain mixed with fun. Jim had sat watching them, drinking his scotch, wishing in a small part of himself that he could be like that. He worried too much about hurting his team, especially the women. He worried about letting go, losing control. All this was about control, about coming so close to the edge of it that the feeling was exhilarating, but never quite going so far as to let go. When he was forced to let go, something had gone wrong. Badly wrong.

‘Meat, Bauer,’ Jim said concisely. ‘Fresh meat. I think she will do you very well.’

Bauer smiled and scratched his cheek. ‘I’m not looking for new acquisitions, Baum. My businesses are quite well stocked.’

Jim leaned forward a little in his chair. Cinnamon flinched at his movement and he shot her a glare.

‘I’m not talking about your businesses, Bauer. I’m talking about _you_. Look at her.’

‘Yes,’ Bauer said smoothly, his eyes travelling to Cinnamon again. ‘She’s scared of you, Mr Baum.’

Jim snorted. ‘She wouldn’t need to be scared if she did as she were told,’ he said callously. ‘What do you say, Bauer? You want her, or shall I – ’

He gripped his hand tight around Cinnamon’s arm again, making as if to stand. She almost whimpered at the movement.

‘How much?’ Bauer asked abruptly.

Jim stopped, turning back to him. ‘How much? Twenty thousand marks. I’m not taking anything less.’

Bauer’s eyes widened briefly. He touched his hand to his pocket, looking between Cinnamon and Jim.

‘You have a very inflated opinion of your stock,’ he said. ‘Ten thousand.’

‘Fifteen, or she’s coming back with me.’

Bauer regarded them both again. Then he turned and brought a bottle of liquor and two glasses to the table. He poured one and pushed it over the table to Jim, before pouring out his own.

‘Fifteen,’ he nodded. ‘Fifteen will do nicely. Would you like to drink on it?’

Jim downed the alcohol in one, and then held out his open palm.

‘Fifteen. Cash. Now.’

Bauer regarded Cinnamon again, his eyes drifting across her face, down to the low-scooped neck of her dress and up again. He drank his own drink and stood up.

‘I won’t be five minutes,’ he said. ‘I don’t keep that kind of cash on me, you understand?’

‘I understand perfectly,’ Jim said.

He looked sideways at Cinnamon as Bauer left the room. She kept her eyes cast down, not daring to say anything that would give them away.

‘Oh, Otto, I don’t want to,’ she said after a moment. There were tears trembling at the edges of her eyes.

‘Mr Baum,’ he reminded her roughly. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ he added. ‘He’ll treat you better than I do – and better than I will if he sends you back. Remember that.’

He caught the slight sound of movement outside the room. Their caution had been justified. Bauer had been spying again. He heard movement on a staircase then, footsteps ascending, and then after a minute descending again. Bauer returned with a handful of bills, his eyes fixed on Cinnamon again.

‘Fifteen thousand,’ he said, putting the money onto the table with great care, as if he were dealing cards.

Jim picked it up and began to flick through the stack of bills, checking the amount and veracity of each one. They weren’t fake, and the amount was correct. He folded the wad and pushed it into his pocket. That was one of the perks of this job. There were all paid handsomely, expenses reimbursed, and he now had fifteen thousand Barnstadt marks in his pocket. It wouldn’t go far back in the US, but it would buy plenty here.

‘All right,’ he said with a quick nod. ‘Nice doing business with you, Mr Bauer. I’ll stop by again if I have anything else you might enjoy. Here,’ he said, flicking a card onto the table. ‘Call me if you have any problems with her. I can straighten her out.’

Concern prickled at the back of his neck as he walked out of the club. It always did when he left Cinnamon in a situation like this, no matter how well she could handle herself. But he didn’t show it. He kept his back straight and his hands pushed into the warmth of his pockets, and he stepped out into the bleak cold of the snow-draped street.

 


	3. Chapter 3

There was someone tailing him. He couldn’t see anyone, but still, he knew that someone was tailing him. It didn’t really matter. He was going back to his rented rooms. There was nothing suspicious in that. Nothing to be seen. But he was curious as to _why_ someone would be following him. Bauer had no reason to be suspicious. If he did, then Cinnamon may be in danger.

Jim hesitated as he passed a café, looking through the window at the tables inside. No reason to worry about who was tailing him, but still…

Making a split second decision, he entered the café, seating himself at an empty table close to the door. It became immediately obvious to him why these tables near the front of the café were empty - the cold poured through the single glazed window and pushed away the heated air behind. But he wasn’t worrying about that. He kept his gloves on and kept his eyes directly obliquely toward the street.

He saw a man in a tightly buttoned overcoat walk past without a second glance. But then there was a woman, moving hesitantly, looking about herself as if she had lost something. Jim raised his eyes up to her and she saw him through the window. Her face flushed, but before she could move away he had opened the door and bowed his head to her.

‘A coffee, Fräulein?’ he asked her simply.

Her lips parted and she almost shook her head – but then she nodded swiftly, and followed him into the café.

‘Sit down, Fräulein,’ he said, pulling out a chair.

He recognised her as she removed her hat. Liesl Weismuller, Bauer’s current woman. He scrutinised her, seeing the fine lines about her eyes and the edges of her mouth that had not been evident in the photographs, contrasted by the bounce and thickness of her hair as it tumbled in a dark mass from beneath her fur hat. She wasn’t very old, but she had been made mature by working for Bauer. Working for? Slaving for? He wasn’t sure what to call it. The fact that she was here implied that she enjoyed a certain amount of freedom. He wondered if she enjoyed her duties, or whether she put up with them as an unavoidable price for staying alive.

‘You were following me, Fräulein,’ he said, before his thoughts could run too far. ‘Why?’

‘I – ’ she began hesitantly, and then seemed to steel herself and said, ‘I was watching you at the club, Herr Baum. Watching you selling that woman to Herr Bauer.’

‘Well?’ Jim asked her with a light shrug.

‘He sent me away,’ she said, and she couldn’t disguise the slight tremble of her lips. ‘I have nothing and nobody now, Herr Baum. Because _you_ brought that woman to him.’

Jim’s eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to read her. He couldn’t risk betraying any feeling about her situation. She could still be attached to Bauer.

‘Well, what do you expect me to do about it?’ he asked. He glanced up as a waitress approached the table, saying curtly, ‘Two coffees, bitte.’

As he had expected, his tone sent the girl away without any extra fuss. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. The first inhale pushed away some of the chill that was drifting through the window, and he breathed smoke out into the air in a lazy cloud.

‘Well, Fräulein?’ he asked again. ‘What am I supposed to do with Herr Bauer’s cast offs?’

Her lips pressed together in a thin line. The waitress returned, putting down two cups of coffee on the table between them, and Jim nodded in a mute thank you.

‘I have nowhere to go, Herr Baum,’ Weismuller said, almost in the tone of a challenge. She looked up at him, her brown eyes defiant. ‘I came to Herr Bauer with nothing more than the clothes I stood in, and those were replaced almost immediately. I have left with nothing more than what I wear now. I have no family in this country. I have no money. I have no home.’

Jim took a deep swallow of his coffee, watching her over the rim of the cup. There was something about her – something he could not pin down. He could see why Bauer had wanted her. She wasn’t simply attractive. There was a spark of intelligence and defiance that brought her features to life. A shard of pity made itself felt deep inside him. It was his fault that she had been cast out. There were always sacrifices made on missions like this, but he didn’t have to like it. He never enjoyed the human cost of such things.

He pulled out the sheaf of money that Bauer had given him in exchange for Cinnamon. He leafed through the notes carelessly and watched Weismuller’s eyes widen a little, her lips parting as if she were hungry. She took a mouthful of her own coffee to cover her reaction, and he smiled.

‘Here,’ he said, tossing a couple of hundred mark bills onto the table. ‘That should set you up for a couple of days.’

She stared at them as if he had just thrown a dirty napkin toward her.

‘I don’t need your charity,’ she said tightly.

Jim looked at her. What was it about her? There was something in her face that made a part of him soften. It didn’t do to have feelings like that in these situations. It never helped.

He drank the last mouthful of his coffee and stood up, tossing a few coins onto the table for the drinks. Then he very deliberately placed two fingers on the bills and pushed them toward the woman.

‘If you don’t take them, Fräulein, the waitress will,’ he said pointedly.

He walked out of the café without waiting for a response. He didn’t turn his head toward the window as he walked past the front of the building, but he saw out of the corner of his eye Weismuller’s fingers moving cautiously toward the money. It was in her pocket before he had moved out of sight.

******

‘You think she was on the level, Jim?’

Rollin leant back in his chair and carelessly rested his feet on the arm of the chair next to him, blowing smoke out of his mouth in a slow cloud.

‘I think she was on the level,’ Jim nodded. He fanned out the cards he held in his hand, scrutinised the symbols, and then flung them down on the table. ‘I fold. You’ve got me beat, Rollin.’

Rollin swung his feet back to the floor and reached out to the table. He turned the cards over and looked at them with a grin.

‘You could usually out-poker a pro-gambler, Jim. What’s wrong with you?’

He threw his own cards down on the table. They weren’t playing for money, just for matchsticks that were scattered across the table. There was no vested interest in the game for either of them.

Jim scratched his head, taking a mouthful of his drink and grimacing at the taste of what passed for scotch in this place.

‘I don’t know, Rollin,’ he said. ‘Something bothers me about that woman. Not whether she was on the level,’ he said quickly, raising a hand. ‘No, I’m certain she was. Just – ’

‘Let me make a guess,’ Rollin said, leaning forward slightly. ‘She had long, dark hair and a figure that could stop clocks? She had that look in her eyes – that lost kitten look. It was cold outside and you had that wad of money in your coat, and you couldn’t leave her to freeze?’

‘It’s not like that, exactly,’ Jim said, suddenly disconcerted. Was it just her face and that look in her eyes that was bothering him? Was he really such an easy target for the lady-in-distress routine? But no. He had seen how she had taken that money, like a beggar child snatching food that had been dropped by a careless passer-by.

‘Forget about her,’ Rollin said pointedly, gathering up the cards and beginning to shuffle them with expert hands. ‘If she’s off his hands, she’s off ours too. She’s irrelevant. It proves Cinnamon’s played her part well.’

‘Hmm,’ Jim said slowly. ‘Barney and Willy checked in recently?’ he asked as a change of subject.

‘Not long before you came back,’ Rollin nodded. ‘They’ve got everything set up for the roadworks and all their permits checked out fine. They’re going to start the serious work tomorrow. Said they’ll be round here after dinner.’

‘Good,’ Jim said pensively. ‘That’s good.’

‘You’re worried about Cinnamon too?’ Rollin asked perceptively.

‘She can look after herself,’ Jim said, but his eyes met Rollin’s, and he knew they both understood one another.

‘Well, I’ll be introducing myself to Bauer tomorrow,’ Rollin smiled, leaning back in his chair again and taking out a cigarette. ‘I should catch sight of her then and see she’s all right.’

‘And Bauer should start feeling the squeeze,’ Jim said with a grim smile. ‘I know his type. Once he gets scared that it’s all going to come out, he’ll start getting careless. He’ll be thinking about you. No one else.’

******

Jim wondered sometimes if he did too much smoking and drinking on missions like this. Smoking, drinking liquor, and drinking coffee. He had too much time to think about things, not enough time to act. He stood at the window of his room, looking through the crack between the curtains at the apartment block opposite, watching the people going about their lives. He almost laughed as he watched each little person in their little square of light, acting as if they were in total privacy. He remembered watching a film like that a good ten years ago. Jimmy Stewart, was it? A Hitchcock film. A guy watching people to occupy his mind, and discovering a murder. Funny the things one watched for relaxation…

There was a couple there arguing about something. Another couple setting down cups on a clear table. A little boy bouncing up and down on his toes watching the light drifting snow, up too late and too excited. Jim’s eyes drifted up a storey, and he saw a light snap on, a woman walking across the room, loosening her dark hair with one hand. His focus tightened. Liesl Weismuller. She had perhaps got an apartment with that money he had given her. It was a shabby place across the street – shabbier even than this building – and was likely to be cheap.

He watched her as she moved across the room. She was looking about herself as if the place was unfamiliar. Her behaviour seemed consistent with her story in the café, at least. She had no bag but a paper one that was perhaps filled with groceries, and she looked tired and cold. She sat down at the table and started to unpack items. He was right – bread, some tins and packets, a few fresh vegetables. She took a cigarette out of a new carton and lit it. And then she looked over toward the window, stood up, and closed the curtains.

He watched for a few minutes longer, finishing his cigarette and just staring at the drawn curtains, watching her shadow moving behind them. He didn’t want to get involved. He knew he should not get involved. But – there was just something about her. Something that drew him to her.

He told himself not to be foolish. He turned away from the window and stubbed out his cigarette in the thick glass ashtray on the bedside table. He could hear Rollin and Barney and Willy next door, the poker game revived and their laughter and talk coming quietly and sporadic through the door. They never questioned the times that he needed to be alone. In some ways he wished perhaps that they would. But he always turned away from their concern. They were good friends, sticking to him through all of his unsociability.

He sighed. It was time to stop brooding. He opened his suitcase and rummaged through the neatly folded clothes in there. In the bottom, carefully wrapped in socks and underwear, were two bottles of proper, expensive scotch. He drew out one, gave the label a cursory glance, and pushed through the door back into the main room.

‘Jim, come join us,’ Rollin said immediately, patting an empty chair. ‘I need someone who can actually play this damn game.’

Jim laughed as Barney protested and Willy shot Rollin an injured look. He raised the bottle in his hand and said, ‘I brought out the good stuff. It seemed like the right time for it.’

‘Always the right time for the good stuff,’ Barney nodded, holding up his glass and examining the small amount of liquor at the bottom. ‘I don’t know what they call this, but it’s not good.’

‘Well,’ Jim said, turning to the cupboard and fetching himself a glass. ‘Finish off that and I’ll raise your spirits with this. We can drink to a smooth first day. Rollin said you got the works set up?’

‘Yeah,’ Willy said economically. ‘No trouble at all.’

‘I don’t think one hand knows what the other hand’s doing in this country,’ Barney added. ‘No one questioned us.’

‘Yeah, that’s the best way,’ Jim said, pouring himself a glass of clear amber liquid. ‘Why don’t they ever have ice boxes in these countries?’ he complained, peering into the refrigerator with his glass in one hand.

Rollin laughed. ‘They don’t need them,’ he said, getting to his feet. He opened the window and bitter air flooded in. He looked up, then knocked at something hanging from the window ledge above. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out an icicle as long as his forearm. ‘I guess you can do something with that.’

Jim’s eyes glinted. ‘That I can,’ he said. He took the icicle and put it on the counter, then knocked it into pieces with a meat tenderiser. ‘That really is on the rocks,’ he said as he slipped a couple of chunks into his glass and Rollin’s. He fetched Barney’s and Willy’s empty glasses and treated them in the same way, and then swept the rest of the ice into the sink.

Rollin took his glass, sat back down in the armchair and put his feet up on the coffee table. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag before lifting the glass to his lips and taking a sip. Then he grinned. ‘Best I’ve ever tasted. Good American scotch and pure European ice. What a combination.’

‘Deal me in,’ Jim said, regaining his empty chair. ‘I’m going to finish off the night by winning myself a fortune in matchsticks.’


	4. Chapter 4

The morning light was thin through the curtains. Jim lay in bed staring at it, his eyes wide open. That blue light meant there was still snow outside, and perhaps more to come. He had been lying awake for half an hour, and his alarm clock still had another half hour before going off. His body clock was still messed up.

Finally he pushed the lever on the alarm and swung his legs out of bed. The air was freezing and he winced. He’d have to kick the heaters into life and push some of the cold out of the place.

He sat on the edge of the bed, listening for a moment. Rollin was quiet, probably still asleep, but there was no point in lying about here until he heard noises from his friend. If he didn’t force himself up the heaters would never get turned on and the place would never get warm.

He allowed himself a brief look out between the curtains. The sky was lightened by the gold streaks of the rising sun, but the streets were still dim and there were lights on in some windows. The snow was still thick on the ground. A new layer had fallen in the night. Liesl Weismuller’s curtains were closed, with no light showing behind them at all.

His eyes fell on the radio receiver by the bed as he turned back into the room. Cinnamon’s radio was disguised as a hair dryer, but his was just the ordinary pale blue box. So far, it had remained silent. That wasn’t unusual, he reminded himself. She would not risk calling unless there was a need. He couldn’t help wondering, though. Where had she slept that night? Had Bauer allowed her a period of grace? Was she coping with it all?

He had to trust her. That was the only way. She was a good agent. She used her femininity well. It was one of the most efficient weapons in her arsenal.

He turned away from the nightstand, fingering the buttons on his pyjama jacket. He didn’t have any urge to remove his warm nightclothes and swap them for new ones, but that was life. He couldn’t lie under a blanket all day worrying about the various women involved in this mission. He should be according the same worry to Barney and Willy, involved in what would probably be one of the most audacious robberies this country had ever seen. Theirs was a very different kind of danger to the danger that Cinnamon was in. If they ended up being caught and subjected to Barnstadt law, what might happen to them?

No. He couldn’t spend all his time worrying. If he did he would never take any of these missions. Certainly he would never succeed.

The bathroom was even colder than the bedroom. There was a sheen of condensation on the mirror and damp on almost every surface. The window, already frosted by design, was covered in a layer of real frost that made patterns of feathers and ethereal creatures that were much more beautiful than the repeated flower design that the window had been given in manufacture. A glimmer of early sunshine made each curlicue shine with gold that gave an illusion of warmth to the cold room.

He had to take the plunge. He started to run the hot tap, praying for the heat to actually come. As the pipes started to knock and gurgle and water gushed forth he quickly stripped off his pyjamas. Every hair on his body stood up at the cold and he jogged softly on the spot a couple of times to warm himself up until the water started steaming. Then he washed himself all over swiftly with a flannel, wishing heartily that there were a shower in this place. He rubbed himself dry quickly, wondering if he left the sheen of water on his skin if it would turn into curls and feathers like the ice on the window and Rollin would find him frozen there, a beautiful ice sculpture of no use at all.

He laughed softly at that and started to lather up soap for shaving. As he passed the razor carefully over the facets of his face he started to feel a little more human. Pretty soon he would pass as the respectable guy that everyone saw him as day to day, even if his mind still felt fogged and distracted by jet lag and worry.

He stared at himself in the water-smeared mirror, dabbing the last remnants of soap from his face with a towel and passing a comb through his sleep-mussed hair. His blue eyes looked pensive and there was a furrow in his forehead – but then he had started to get lines on his face in his twenties about the same time his hair started to grey. People always thought he was older than he was. It was something he was used to.

He put his shaving things back in the cabinet, wiped the basin clean of soap, and went to hurry back through the cold living room into his bedroom.

He found himself looking through the split in the curtains again as he got dressed. Liesl Weismuller’s curtains were open now and the room beyond was empty. Perhaps she had got up and gone out in haste, searching for a job, maybe, or a better place to live. He hoped it was a job rather than another place to live. He wanted to be able to keep an eye on her. He didn’t know why he cared, but something in the back of his mind told him he must. It was important, and he would find out why in time.

He pushed out through the bedroom door into the living room and stopped as he saw Rollin sitting in an armchair out there, enveloped in a dark silk dressing gown and smiling suavely at his friend.

‘You weren’t up when I went to shave,’ Jim commented, going over to the sink to pour water for coffee.

‘You underestimate the power of Barnstadt plumbing,’ Rollin said with a smile. ‘It’s a better alarm clock than man could conceive of. And the coffee’s already on,’ he said as he saw Jim looking about for the pot.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jim smiled. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you up.’

He had abstractedly noticed the gurgling and glugging of the pipes as he washed and shaved, but in his preoccupation he hadn’t thought of it waking Rollin.

‘No problem,’ Rollin replied. ‘Thanks for putting the heaters on, old boy.’

Jim couldn’t help but laugh quietly at Rollin’s restrained suavity. No matter where he was or what he was doing he always seemed to be able to fall into relaxed elegance if the moment allowed.

‘So you’re still thinking about her, huh?’ Rollin asked, and Jim turned in feigned confusion.

‘Who? Cinnamon? She can manage,’ he said briefly.

‘No,’ Rollin said pointedly. ‘Not Cinnamon. Your little foreign waif, Fräulein Weismuller. There’s a gallant streak in you a mile wide, Jim Phelps. Do what you like, but it won’t go away by wishing.’

Jim snorted quietly and sat down opposite Rollin. He wanted to deny it but he knew that Rollin could see through the hard façade of the master spy. Ninety-nine percent of the time he could carry it through, could continue no matter what scruples and objections moved in his mind, but Rollin knew him well enough the glimpse that one percent chink in the armour.

‘Okay, I’m thinking about her,’ he nodded.

He wished to God that coffee would boil so he could get up and pour himself a cup. He lit himself a cigarette and drew in the hot, fresh smoke. That would have to do until he could get the caffeine running in his veins.

‘Is it going to do any good to the mission, Jim?’ Rollin asked him seriously.

‘I don’t know,’ Jim replied. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘Take care,’ Rollin said succinctly.

The pot suddenly began to spit and roil and Rollin unfolded himself from the chair to go and pour the dark, clear liquid into two mugs.

‘Cream? Sugar?’ he asked.

‘Black,’ Jim said, his eyes on the closed curtains.

When he received the mug from Rollin he found the coffee black but sweet. Rollin had known that he wanted sugar even though he hadn’t said so. He drank the mug in a few swift mouthfuls and then went in search of something quick and simple to eat.

‘You’re going to see Bauer as scheduled, then?’ he asked Rollin over his shoulder as he spread butter on a crusty slice of bread.

‘As scheduled,’ Rollin nodded. ‘I’ll slip in some reconnaissance first to see if it alters my plans. And you, Jim my old friend, are going to see that girl. There’s nothing else you need to be doing, is there?’

‘Nothing at all,’ Jim said with a degree of tightness.

Sometimes he felt most useless when they were actually _on_ their missions, unless he had a pivotal role in the thing. There would be no mission without the plans that he devised, and he would be needed if anything went wrong – but right now his only job was to sit in the apartment and wait for the others to report back to him.

‘Don’t get yourself into any trouble, will you, Jim?’ Rollin asked him as he brought his breakfast over to the table.

‘I won’t,’ Jim promised. He patted Rollin on the shoulder. ‘Go on. Start snooping. The early bird catches the worm, you know.’

‘This worm will be a pleasure to catch,’ Rollin said, and Jim knew that he was thinking of Cinnamon in that’s man’s clutches. Rollin was right. This one really would be a pleasure to bring down.

******

The club was almost empty at this time in the morning, but then Rollin wasn’t going there for fun. He was going to check the lie of the land, to see what kind of place the man was running. It was later that he would come back and try to catch a glimpse of Bauer – and perhaps of Cinnamon too.

He was glad to get off the street, even if it was to go into a place like this. The sidewalks were thick with snow that was only slowly being trampled or swept away by pedestrians and shop owners. The cuffs of his pants were caked in hard little pieces of compressed snow, his feet were damp, and the cold was penetrating the clothes he had chosen to wear. He stamped some of the snow off on the mat and hoped that there would be heaters on in the place.

The heat that hit him as he opened the door told him that the place had been up and running for a while. There weren’t many people in there but somewhere a gramophone was putting out some kind of slow jazz and the heaters about the walls were making the air shimmer in the dim light. If this had been a place back home, if this weren’t a mission, if he hadn’t known the kind of activities that the club fronted, it might be a fun place to spend a few hours.

He walked up to the bar and asked rather slurringly for a brandy. The man behind the bar gave him a quick look up and down, but Rollin hadn’t dressed as a sharp and well-paid reporter this morning. He was wearing a dirty old corduroy jacket and old slacks and looked more like a down-at-heel drunk than anything else. His upper lip was covered with a thick but rather unkempt moustache, and he had aged his complexion significantly. Perfect for drinking at this time in the morning, perfect for rambling drunkenly to people and have them spew information back at him without thinking they might be letting anything go that was of value. Perfect for coming back later as a spick and span gentleman and having no one guess he was the same man.

Rollin threw a couple of coins onto the bar and took his drink away to a table where a few other patrons were sitting nearby. The barman certainly didn’t look the type to talk, but he might have some luck with the other early morning denizens of this place.

A few drinks later and he was leaning back in his chair and chatting companionably to an old man who was far more drunk than Rollin would allow himself to get, and who smelt of sweat and cigarettes and unwashed clothing. It wasn’t exactly a joy talking to him, but it was a fun character study, and he also gleaned a lot about Bauer’s activity in the place.

‘Oh ja, the boss. He’s always coming and going,’ the man slurred, nodding not towards the street door, but to the door behind the bar that led off to other rooms. None of the patrons seemed to know the Bauer by name, but referred to him as ‘the boss’ or ‘the old man.’

‘Tall fellow, isn’t he?’ Rollin asked, taking another swig of his drink. What a waste it was to drink brandy this fast – although this certainly wasn’t the best brandy he’d ever tasted. ‘Good looking old dog, isn’t he, even with that grey hair?’

He had inured himself over the years to alcohol. He had to drink a hell of a lot before it really made him let go. It was too dangerous in situations like this to let it get the better of him.

‘Ja, ja,’ the other guy nodded. ‘Always a girl on his arm. Always.’

Rollin made a sound of disgust and took another mouthful of the brandy.

‘Some guys have all the luck, huh?’

‘Oh, that’s true enough,’ his companion nodded, taking the opportunity to relocate himself and his drink to Rollin’s table.

Rollin steeled himself not to recoil at the odour of the man in such close proximity to him. After all, he probably had something of a similar smell after this much brandy and so many cigarettes and the old clothes that he had deliberately worn at the worst times to give them an authentic scent.

‘Buy you another?’ he asked, and of course the man nodded.

‘Oh, ja, your pockets must be deeper than mine.’

Rollin refreshed the drinks and settled himself in to a long morning of discovering exactly when Bauer would be around, on which days, and when he was most likely to have his latest companion on his arm. By midday he was feeling pleasingly sotted and in full grasp of plenty of information, and he knew it was time to leave before the liquor got the better of him. It would be a good idea to check up on Jim before he sorted himself out for the evening’s work. Jim and that girl, whatever she might turn out to be.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Jim felt as if he had spent hours trying to resist going to see Liesl Weismuller. Despite Rollin’s suggestion that he should, it just seemed like too great a lapse of his professionalism. But every time he looked out of the window at the rooms across the street he felt like a moth drawn blindly to a flickering light bulb. He should be more than that. He wasn’t a creature who couldn’t control his own impulses. She was out of the mission, right out, as soon as Cinnamon had taken her place. He had no reason to see her.

Her apartment was empty, anyway. He could still see some of her personal possessions strewn about in there, so she hadn’t left for good, but she certainly wasn’t in. He had descended to sitting behind his own nearly-drawn curtains with binoculars, scrutinising what he could see in there. Items of food and crockery, a piece of clothing flung over a chair, a hairbrush left on the table. But no Liesl. Wherever she had gone she was perhaps going to be out all day. It wasn’t just a quick trip out to the shops. She would have been back by now.

He put aside his binoculars in self-disgust. He had no justification for spying on her. None at all. She had nothing to do with Bauer now. Cinnamon had taken over her role. It was up to Cinnamon to report back as needed. Cinnamon was a spy, and a darn good one. Liesl was nothing of that sort – just a woman trapped by circumstances into a hard and sad life.

He stroked a hand down the front of his jacket, considering his next course of action. He wouldn’t have been wearing the jacket indoors, but the heaters weren’t too effective, and it was chilly again in the apartment. Rollin was still out at the club and would tell him anything he’d discovered when he returned. Barney and Willy were out at their faux roadworks. Cinnamon was presumably ensconced in whatever it was that Bauer deemed part of her duties.

He slipped his jacket off and went into the bedroom, shuffling through the clothing in his suitcase until he found something suited to the foreman of a road-working gang. It would be easy enough to slip in through the entrance of Barney and Willy’s works and go see how they were doing. He’d looked at all the plans of the sewers and the cellars of Bauer’s club, but nothing compared to seeing them in the flesh.

He cursed his hair colour silently as he pulled on the workman’s clothes. It was easy enough to change one’s looks with clothing, but his silver-grey hair stood out. Perhaps his looks weren’t so distinctive out here in this Germanic country – his height and blue eyes were more run of the mill than a talking point – but the hair was tougher to manage.

He sighed and underwent the regrettable necessity of rubbing a little dark dye through his hair. It didn’t change it entirely, but it at least made it a little less obvious. If anyone happened to see him leaving these rooms they would hopefully think he was a visiting worker rather than the suited gentleman who had rented this place.

He washed the dark stuff off his hands and went into the bedroom to pick up his radio. A glance through the curtains told him that Liesl’s apartment was probably still empty.

He sighed. So he was thinking of her in first name terms now, was he? That was always an irritating, telling sign. Fräulein Weismuller. That was better. Far better. An anonymous woman with whom he had exchanged no more than one conversation. Nothing more than that.

He flicked his radio on and tuned it in to Barney’s channel and said rather more tersely than he had intended, ‘I’m coming down, Barney.’ He glanced at his watch, taking in the precise position of the minute hand without conscious thought. ‘See you at ten forty-five.’

‘All right, Jim. We’re doing fine,’ was all that Barney said in reply. He was long used to Jim’s manner.

Jim slipped the radio into his pocket and pulled on a navy greatcoat that was of a size that would suit both him and Rollin. It was a little loose on Rollin’s shoulders, but fit well enough, and it was useful being able to swap some of their disguises on a trip like this. It wasn’t like he could just go out and buy a foreman’s worn and tired jacket at the drop of a hat.

Outside the snow was starting to flake from the sky again. The clouds looked so heavy and dark that it seemed there was an entire world of snow up there still waiting to come down. Jim pushed his boot through some of the snow on the sidewalk, hoping it wouldn’t get thick enough that it would interfere with Barney’s and Willy’s operations. They were fine once they were underground, but roadworks might look suspicious in six foot high snow drifts.

Barney had chosen his entry to the sewers well. He and Willy had set up in a back street that was not much more than an alley, and saw very little traffic or even pedestrians. The only drawback was that it wasn’t often cleared of snow, either. They had set up a small workman’s tent over the manhole and a couple of signs either side, leaving just enough room for all but the wider trucks to squeeze through – but few trucks would use this place anyway. It was access to nowhere.

Jim slipped into the tent and down through the open manhole, flicking on his flashlight as he went. His nose wrinkled at the smell. He didn’t know how Barney and Willy stood working in places like this so often. With Barney the elegance and intricacy of the work enticed him, but he wasn’t sure with Willy. Maybe it was enough to know that in this way he was getting a good job done.

At least there were raised walkways in the channels and he didn’t need to wade through the water. He certainly wasn’t equipped for that.

He flashed his light ahead, bringing the sewer plans back to mind. Barney hadn’t marked out his route on the blueprints, not wanting to leave obvious evidence that could be found by a rogue party, but he had traced it out with his finger for Jim to see, and Jim had almost perfect recall for such things. Straight ahead for a hundred yards, then a left down the third side channel. A few other twists and turns, and he would be right where Barney and Willy were tunnelling through the wall and into the rear of Bauer’s safe.

He knew he had reached them before he turned the last corner. He could hear the low rumbling of some kind of power tool, and see a glimmer of light reflecting from the damp walls of the tunnel.

‘Barney, Willy,’ he called, coming round the slow curve.

Willy was holding a drill up against the wall, his entire body shuddering with the vibration as the bit pushed into the bricks. He was having to stoop in the low passage, and it looked a most uncomfortable position.

‘Barney!’ he called again, seeing that neither of them had heard him, and suddenly Barney turned and raised a hand. The man patted Willy on the shoulder and he looked round too, then lowered the drill.

‘Just checking in,’ Jim said in the quiet that fell. He came closer to inspect the ring of holes that Willy had made in the wall. ‘How’s your progress?’

‘It’s fair,’ Barney shrugged. ‘We’re figuring on taking all of today just to get through these bricks. They’re like iron, and we need to take it carefully so we don’t cause structural damage.’

‘Any danger of being heard from the club as you get closer?’ Jim asked.

In one place in his circle of holes Willy had removed a whole brick. He reached a hand through the hole and brought his fist out clenched. He opened it to show Jim a handful of dull, clodding dirt.

‘It’s like that all the way to the foundations of the club, I reckon,’ he said succinctly. ‘They won’t hear anything as we dig through.’

‘We’ve got more subtle tools for the wall of the club basement,’ Barney added. ‘I didn’t bring them today – there’s no need – but we’ll be able to go through _their_ wall almost silently. They won’t be as solidly built as these sewers, I hope.’

‘I hope,’ Jim nodded with a small laugh. He felt better now he was down here doing something, despite the dark and the smell. These smaller channels weren’t so offensively, thankfully. ‘How do you stand the smell down here?’ he asked.

Willy grinned and Barney shrugged.

‘You get used to it,’ Barney told him.

‘Well, I hope you have a good shower in your rooms – or at least a tub,’ Jim grinned back.

‘We have a tub,’ Willy commented, intent on adjusting something on his drill. ‘I wouldn’t call it good, though. I barely fit.’

Jim looked Willy up and down and laughed. He couldn’t imagine that Willy had that much ease fitting into tubs back home, let alone in these little Eastern European bathrooms where plumbing seemed more like a surprise extra than a necessity.

‘How are you planning on getting through all that dirt safely, Barney?’ he asked, serious again.

‘Props and beams to hold up the dirt above,’ Barney told him.

‘And a lot of shovelling,’ Willy added.

‘It’s going to be a long process,’ Barney said seriously. ‘We can throw the spoil out into the sewer, at least, as long as we do it gradually, but we’ll have to be pretty careful the whole lot doesn’t come down on us.’

‘You’ve got – what – fifty yards to cover?’ Jim asked, leaning to shine his flashlight into the one-brick hole that Willy had made. There was nothing in there but a dark wall of earth.

‘Forty-six, to be precise. It’s going to be tough.’

Jim clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll do it,’ he said with a confidence that was completely genuine. He had never known Barney to let him down. ‘You’ve got something to cover the hole?’

Willy nodded towards something covered with a dust-sheet. He raised the cloth to show a thin panel artfully painted with a trompe-l’oeil wall of brick.

‘We’ll fix that to the wall after us. Unless someone knocks against it – and no one comes down here anyway – they won’t know it’s any different from the real wall.’

‘Great, Willy,’ Jim smiled. ‘Anything I can help with while I’m down here?’

Barney shook his head. ‘We’ve got it, Jim. It’s a cramped operating space as it is.’

Jim nodded, suddenly getting the feeling he was holding them up.

‘I’ll get back above ground,’ he said. He turned around to make his way back up the low, circular passage, then looked over his shoulder briefly. ‘Good work,’ he nodded, then flashed his light ahead of him and made his way swiftly out of the sewer.

He couldn’t help but think it was a good thing it was so darn cold above considering the scent that was rising from his clothes after being down in the sewer. If it had been hot outside he would have stank for a radius of six feet. As it was he just put his head down and tightened his coat around him and walked briskly back towards the apartment, intent on a bath as soon as he could get one. The snow was still falling thickly, cold flakes landing on the back of his neck and making him shiver, but at least the walk was warming.

He was getting near the apartment, head down against the snow, when he found himself abruptly barrelling into someone. He recoiled, muttering apologies, fully aware of how he must smell at close quarters. As he raised his head he recognised her – Liesl Weismuller, heading back towards her own rooms, it seemed. In their collision she had dropped two paper bags of groceries and he reached out to help pick them up, then remembered the unhygienic state of his hands and backed off, muttering again, ‘Entschuldigung, entschuldigung.’

She shook her head, her lips moving to say something, but she made no sound. Startled, Jim realised that she was crying, and from the state of her eyes had been for some time. He reached out a hand again, then withdrew it again. It was important that she didn’t recognise him. After all, what excuse would Otto Baum have for being disguised as a works foreman and stinking of the sewers?

‘Entschuldigung,’ he said again, hurrying away from her and not looking back.

Back in the apartment he stood in the window looking down at the street below, the curtains only a crack open so no one would recognise the grubby workman and wonder what he was doing in the grey-haired man’s apartment. He laughed dryly as he stood there. He seemed to be spending half his time here spying on Fräulein Weismuller through the curtains. She had picked up her groceries by now and was hurrying across the street towards her own door. He felt a curious degree of relief at the fact that she was home now, not out wandering the city. He had a latent fear that she would return to Bauer, and might end up in a worse situation than she was now.

He closed the small gap in the curtains. No need to watch for her to appear in her rooms. He shrugged the greatcoat off and dropped it carefully on the floor near the door, then did the same with the rest of his clothes. There was no laundry hamper here anyway, and certainly not one marked for clothes tainted with sewage. He would have to wash them himself later, or maybe persuade Rollin to go out and find a laundromat. The last thing he wanted to do was go and sit in a place like that, but Rollin would enjoy pulling on some disguise and taking the clothes out to wash and studying the patrons for future ideas for disguise.

At least the water heater shuddered obediently into action when he turned on the bath tap, and before long the tub was full of steaming water. He washed the dye out of his hair with a special cleanser in the basin, then sank gratefully into the bathtub, feeling the heat of the water wash all around him and start to ease the cold out of his limbs.

No wonder Willy had such trouble with his own tub. Jim had to keep his knees bent up, and his shoulders bound against the sides – but the water was hot and it felt so good to slowly wash away any taint from the sewers. Probably very little had got on him, since his clothes covered most of his body and he had been very careful of what he touched, but this was as much about feeling clean as being clean.

He closed his eyes and leant his head back, letting the water wash around his neck and ease out the stiffness from keeping his head bent underground. As he lay there he remembered the sight of Liesl in the street, her red eyes and her distracted expression. She had been distracted, he supposed, because she had just collided with a man who stank of sewage and who had made her drop her bags, but he was sure there was more than that. Of course she was distracted. She was broke, jobless, and adrift in the world.

He exhaled a long, slow breath, flexing his fingers under the water. He was going to have to do something about this. If he didn’t he would never be able to focus his mind properly on this job. He’d tried avoiding her today and had ended up walking headlong into her. Best to just come face to face with her and deal in some way with this problem.

 


	6. Chapter 6

So far Georg Bauer had been merciful. That wasn’t the best way to see it – Cinnamon knew that. It wasn’t a case of being at his mercy or not at his mercy. He was in control only as far as she let him. _She_ was manipulating him, not the other way round. Even if she slept with him. Even when it came to that, it would be because _she_ had chosen to enter this situation, and chosen all that came with it.

But still, so far Cinnamon felt as if she had been spared. Bauer had been gentlemanly and restrained. She had her own room – a very pleasant room, large and light and beautifully decorated, with windows that looked out over the gardens and the high walls to the city beyond. From her window she could see the gravelled drive and the gates – but there was no way through those gates unless Bauer chose to let her through.

She sat at the vanity table, carefully applying lipstick and examining the result in the mirror. It wasn’t a shade that she would have chosen, but it was carefully matched to the lipstick worn by Adala Hummel, the girl with whom Bauer had been so besotted all those years ago. Cinnamon had an advantage over all those other women Bauer had been through. He had chosen them due to superficial resemblances to Adala, but they had had no idea of the criteria up to which they were supposed to live. Cinnamon, on the other hand, had briefed herself fully on Adala’s appearance and personality, and _she_ had chosen Bauer.

She closed up her little case of make up and put it neatly back in the drawer. Bauer prized neatness and personal cleanliness – not that she had a problem with that. The role of Greta Hoch was an easy one to follow, so far.

The lipstick, she kept out of the case. That could go in her pocket instead, ready to take photographs as needed. It would be easy enough to stand with the small gold tube in her hand, casually taking a picture under everyone’s gaze. She would perhaps get a chance to use it later tonight, if Bauer took her to one of his clubs, as she expected. There she would be privy to plenty that an outsider like Rollin wouldn’t be able to gain access to.

She ventured into the corridors outside her room, which were lined with relatively unknown but fine works of art. The whole house was decorated with impeccable taste. It had an air of the last century, but only in the most fashionable way. There was nothing here to incriminate Bauer – at least nothing on show. Perhaps if she gained a chance, without risking her cover, she would be able to look into some of his private records and finances. His office was kept locked, it seemed, but it was a simple lock and not beyond her power to pick.

As she came around the corner to the top of the sweeping stairs she almost bumped into Bauer, preoccupied as she was with thoughts of lock-picking and shuffling through his papers.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear,’ Bauer said smoothly. ‘And impeccable as always.’

He was a different man to the businessman she had faced that first night in the club. Always polite, always gracious – but she could sense that there would be steel beneath his soft words if she defied any of his wishes.

Cinnamon smiled, lowering her lashes demurely.

‘I wouldn’t like to displease you, Mr Bauer,’ she said in a low voice.

‘I have told you you must call me Georg,’ Bauer replied, his smile a little more fixed on his face.

‘Of course, Georg,’ Cinnamon corrected herself quickly. ‘I’m sorry. Otto told me – ’

‘I’ve told you not to speak of that man,’ Bauer said, his voice suddenly sharp.

‘I’m sorry,’ Cinnamon said again, allowing herself to smile a little as she angled her face away from him. It was so easy to play him by irritating him and then appearing contrite and abashed.

‘What can I do to please you, Georg?’ she asked as she stepped down the stairs at his side. ‘I do want to be useful.’

Bauer smiled again, a satisfied smile this time.

‘Nothing at all for now, my dear,’ he said, placing a hand between her shoulder blades in a possessive way that made Cinnamon want to shrug him off. ‘I want to dictate some letters to you later. I hope you can take dictation, and type?’ he asked, his voice harder again.

‘Oh, I can learn very quickly,’ Cinnamon said. Of course she could take letters and type, but she didn’t want to appear too perfect too soon.

‘Good. But you’ll need to understand some rules of my office. You are to touch nothing. You are to open no drawers, look in no ledgers, make no comments on what you may see. I have a man to see to everything but dictating.’

‘Of course, Georg,’ she nodded meekly. ‘I would never dream – ’

‘Good,’ he said.

They had reached the bottom of the stairs, and Bauer placed a hand under her chin, pushing it upwards a little so that she met his eyes.

‘I think you will work very well for me,’ he said, leaning in towards her. ‘Very well indeed.’

Cinnamon let him hold her head upwards as he moved his lips towards hers, responding to the kiss just as much as seemed suitable for this moment. She didn’t want to appear eager, but she didn’t want to seem too reluctant, either. She didn’t want to let him have _that_ much power over her.

Bauer pulled away from her and licked his lips.

‘You will do,’ he said.

Cinnamon smiled. It was a part she had to play. He wasn’t too unpleasant at least. Not ugly. His breath didn’t smell. It was just his soul that she despised.

******

The apartments across the street were even more shabby than the place that Jim had chosen for lodgings. On the outside they didn’t look too bad. The limestone façade was blackened by a century of smoke, true, but the windows were sound and the stones were not corroded.

On this inside it was a different matter. The hallway was carpeted with tattered linoleum that revealed broken tiles through its tears. The walls were scuffed, the paint peeling, and the single bulb that hung from the ceiling didn’t work.

Jim didn’t know which apartment Liesl Weismuller had taken, but it wasn’t a far stretch to work it out from the windows outside and the numbers on the mailboxes. He drew his finger over the tarnished brass, looking for the one that might be hers. Three floors up, eight windows to the left. There. That was probably it. Other boxes had papers and envelopes sticking out of them. Hers had nothing.

It would have been useful if there had been a letter or two in there. He could have sneaked a look, formed a better idea of what he was getting into. It would be despicable to go through her mail, but Jim had done plenty of despicable things in the past in the line of duty. It wasn’t something he usually did in the line of burning curiosity and motivated by an attachment he couldn’t fathom, however.

No. It was good there was no mail in there. He dropped his hand back to his side and turned toward the stairs. Everything about this place spoke of better days. The banister was filthy, but it was made of rich, beautiful wood. The stairs were bare, with drips of paint on them, and two lines of white paint on either side that had once edged a narrow carpet. The fixings for stair rods had been ripped out more with mercenary determination than care.

On the third floor he stopped. A corridor stretched away, and then kinked at the end. There was a woman down there with a headscarf on, thrusting her key into the lock of her door and desperately trying to get it to turn, as if she sensed danger in Jim’s presence.

Jim ignored her and walked up the corridor, counting doors. It should be the fourth.

He stood outside for a moment, just looking at the door. At some point someone had tried to kick it in, it seemed. There were splinters in the wood at the bottom and around the lock. He examined the cracks, trying to see if they were recent, but they didn’t seem to be. A sense of relief settled through him.

_Why was he so hung up on this girl?_

He couldn’t answer that. There was no answer. He wanted to attribute it to professional motives. He wanted to say it was because she had been intimate with Bauer, because she might know things that would benefit Cinnamon’s position. He was afraid it had more to do with the very slight upturn of her nose and the darkness of her eyes and the way her hands looked slight but strong.

He knocked on the door. Then he waited.

He heard a brief movement inside, a mutter, and then footsteps coming toward the door. The room wasn’t even carpeted, then. At least his place had a carpet. He felt a momentary regret that he hadn’t pushed more money over the table to her in the café, but then she would not have taken rooms opposite him, and he wouldn’t be here.

Perhaps that would have been best.

Before he could turn and stride back down the corridor, the door opened.

She stood staring at him for a moment. She was dressed in an over long jumper and slacks, more barriers against the cold than anything else. It seemed she had been expecting no callers.

‘Herr Baum,’ she said at last.

‘May I come in?’ Jim asked her.

He wished he could have come to her in some other guise – something other than the white slaver who she had seen selling a woman to Bauer. But there was nothing for it. Any disguise would eventually crumble, and she would see twins, Otto Baum and Jim Phelps, beneath another façade. It was enough that he was risking his cover like this, anyway.

She gestured silently into the room behind her. He slipped past her, and she closed the door. The room was as barren as it had looked from the opposite window, but that view couldn’t tell him about the cold. There was a gas fire installed in the old fireplace, but it was unlit. She couldn’t afford to heat her own room...

Jim strode across to the fire and clicked the ignition.

‘Herr Baum!’ she said from behind him, stepping forward as if to stop him.

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘It is below freezing outside. There’s no need for that in here too.’

A look of desperation crossed her face. Jim reached into his pocket and drew out his wallet. He held out another few hundred marks to her. She hesitated, but then she took them, her expression a mixture of gratitude and discomfort.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked in a suspicious voice, but Jim noticed that she had manoeuvred herself as close to the fire as she could, despite her distrust of him.

Jim plumped for honesty. ‘I had to see you were all right,’ he said.

He wanted to say, _I’ve been watching you from my window. I was worried about you. You captivate me._

He didn’t. Just letting her know that his apartment could be seen from hers would be dangerous. It was dangerous enough as it was that she could look across and see him and Rollin, and perhaps Willy and Barney too.

‘You brought that woman to replace me,’ she said, a hardness in her voice that made Jim wince.

‘Herr Bauer was about to replace you anyway,’ he said softly. ‘Everyone knew it.’

Suddenly she began to cry. Jim opened his mouth, reaching out a hand but not quite touching her. He never knew what to do in the face of crying women. He patted his hand on her shoulder, and then abruptly she flung herself against him and began to sob into his chest. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around her. She seemed very small in the circle of his arms.

It was nothing personal, he knew. He was her father, her big brother, her uncle. He was a large, strong, masculine wall for her to lean against and gain comfort when she had no one else in the world.

‘Where is your home, Fräulein?’ he asked, his chin over the top of her head.

She stopped still against him. ‘Berlin,’ she said finally. ‘East Berlin. I was – I wanted to get to the West. I trusted a man...’

Then she stiffened and pulled herself away from Jim. Why should she trust any man?

Jim found himself speaking almost against his will. ‘Maybe I could get you to the West.’

 


	7. Chapter 7

Fräulein Weismuller looked up as if she had been electrified. Jim licked his lips, suddenly nervous. But he had already presented himself to her as someone who bought and sold women – someone who worked beneath the system, probably who crossed borders by night and thought little of immigration controls. It wasn’t a stretch that he would be able to take a woman from East to West.

But as Jim Phelps, as the team leader of his Impossible Missions force, as the top man in his cell, taking his orders from the Secretary; that was different. Ostensibly it would be even easier for him than for his alias – but in reality things weren’t that simple. It was a promise that would be tough and dangerous to back up – as much for her as for him. It could compromise his whole position in the IMF if he were found out.

‘Why would you take me to the West?’ she asked him bitterly, staring at him with nothing but distrust in her eyes. ‘To sell me to someone who’ll send me back east? What do men like you feel for women? We’re commodities. Nothing more.’

‘You are more,’ Jim said.

He wanted to bite his own tongue out. He was so perilously close to blowing his own cover. He was stupid, _stupid,_ to even be here.

‘You don’t know me,’ she said.

‘No,’ he replied, reaching out a hand to her cheek, touching the drying tears there.

She turned away. Jim bit his lip into his mouth. He ought to turn around now and go. But Liesl walked across the room, filled the kettle and put it on the gas ring.

‘I owe you a cup of coffee, Herr Baum,’ she said with her back to him. Even in that over long jumper there was something about her shoulder blades and the set of her neck that made Jim want to go to her.

‘I’d like that,’ he said, aware that he was suddenly smiling like a schoolboy.

He pushed the expression off his face before she turned around. He had to act like Otto Baum, not Jim Phelps, and certainly not like a lovestruck Jim Phelps. He strode across the room and took a seat at the table without asking her. Perhaps he would be lucky. Perhaps Otto would repulse her, where Jim may not.

‘It must have been tough working for Georg Bauer,’ he remarked. ‘But he’s a lucky guy,’ he added, remembering to think as Otto. ‘He must have been crazy to give you up.’

Her shoulders stiffened.

‘Women are supposed to be protected in this world,’ she said. ‘They are supposed to be shielded. They are not. Women work the hardest of all, for least reward.’

Jim half-smiled. He wasn’t sure what to say to that.

After a time she brought the coffee in two cups, and sat down on one of the old, scratched wooden chairs.

‘Georg Bauer disgusted me,’ she said simply. ‘I would like to go to the police, go to the newspapers, tell the world what that man is. But no one would believe me. Besides, his men will be watching me.’

Jim stiffened, glancing momentarily over at the window, not that there was anything to see through a third-floor window.

‘Why do you think they’ll be watching you?’ he asked, keeping his tone casual.

‘Because he told me so,’ she said simply. ‘He made me aware how lucky I am to have my life.’

Jim clenched a hand under the table. He had known it was stupid to come here. He had known it. Never let personal feelings interfere with a mission. That was one of his first credos.

He got up and went to the window, looking down into the street below. The sky was still like slate and the streets were still covered in dirty snow. There was no one down there but pedestrians hurrying by. Still, it would be best to wait until dark before he left the building, and to leave by another exit.

‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ he said, coming back to the table.

‘Then why did you?’ Liesl asked him, regarding him over the top of her coffee cup.

He shrugged. He could allow some honesty. ‘Because I am a foolish man,’ he said. ‘Because I saw you in the café and I knew I must see more of you. I wanted to see that you were all right.’

Her lips turned upwards in a grim smile. ‘Are you a believer in love at first sight, Herr Baum?’

Jim shook his head. ‘I never have been,’ he told her.

She poured a little whiskey into her coffee, and then some into his.

‘It keeps the cold at bay,’ she said.

Jim took a mouthful from his cup. It wasn’t good coffee and it wasn’t good whiskey, but she was right. It did keep the cold at bay.

He glanced across at the windows of his own apartment, wondering how Barney and Willy were doing, if Cinnamon was safe, if Rollin was in there. As he watched he caught a sudden flash of light on binoculars, and realised that Rollin _was_ there, and that he was reclining in the old armchair near the window, watching Jim. There could be men in any of those windows, watching. An uncomfortable feeling crept up his spine. He got up quickly and drew the curtains closed.

‘It keeps the heat in better,’ he said to Liesl as she shot him an enquiring look. He flicked the electric light on, and sat back down.

Whatever it was that magnetised him to Liesl Weismuller, it seemed to be a reciprocal attraction. There was no reason that she should trust any man, least of all a man she had seen selling a woman to Georg Bauer, but still she sat at the table with her eyes on him, leaning closer to him than she needed to. Jim tried again to tell himself that he was here for professional reasons, that she could tell him many useful things about Bauer and his household – but the only person listening to the lie was himself.

‘You lived in Georg Bauer’s house for a long time, didn’t you?’ he asked her. He could perhaps try to make some truth of his lie.

She nodded. ‘Almost seven months. A short time. A long time. It depends from which side you are looking.’

Jim half smiled. ‘You came straight from Berlin?’

Again she nodded. ‘I had known little of life,’ she said. ‘I only knew I wanted to get to the West, to be with what is left of my family. I had a great fault, Herr Baum. I trusted people.’

‘That’s not always a fault,’ Jim said, reaching his hand out across the table. Against all his expectations, she reached toward him and touched his fingers with her own. In some ways he despised himself. She was perhaps desperate for any kind of affection, and he was taking advantage of that.

******

Rollin lowered his binoculars as soon as Jim closed the curtains. He sat in the tired armchair, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, rubbing a finger against his lip. He was worried about Jim. At least he had had the sense to draw those curtains, though. If Rollin could see in to Fräulein Weismuller’s apartment, then so could anyone else. But he knew Jim. He didn’t fall easily, but when he did, he fell hard.

He got up and wandered over to the counter beside the sink. He had pushed away the effects of the morning’s alcohol with a good deal of coffee, and now he cut himself a few thick slices of bread and ate them covered in butter and honey. He had gleaned from his morning’s work that Bauer would almost certainly be at the club tonight, and would probably bring along his new trophy, Cinnamon. Rollin would welcome the chance to see that she was all right as much as he welcomed the chance to get some dirt on Bauer. He had a lipstick camera identical to Cinnamon’s. All he would have to do at the end of the night was to swap his with hers.

He had his reporter’s clothes laid out over a chair in his bedroom. That would give Bauer distraction enough, at least. Worried people thought that they were more careful. In fact, they were far, far more careless. With the thought of a reporter in his club Bauer’s mind would be far from the safe in the cellar and far from thoughts that his lovely new woman could be a plant. He would be watching Rollin, and nothing else.

He whiled away the afternoon playing solitary card games and occasionally taking a glance at those closed curtains across the street. He was hoping that Jim would return soon, but he didn’t. At around six he saw Willy and Barney returning, looking dirty and tired as they left their van and walked towards the front door of the building. He looked out into the corridor as they came past.

‘Like me to fix dinner for you fellers?’ he asked, acutely conscious of how he had spent the day drinking or relaxing while they had been down underground, digging out half-frozen earth.

‘Be there as soon as we’re clean,’ Barney responded with a grin, holding up mud-smeared hands.

Rollin grinned back, and turned back into the apartment. He didn’t have a lot to cook with, but he could make something with potatoes and sausage and canned tomatoes. It might even taste nice.

******

In the club later he was glad of the solid meal that helped to soak up yet more vodkas and brandies and cocktails. He nursed his drinks, but he didn’t want to look as if he was too obviously waiting around. Besides, it wasn’t such a hardship sitting at one of the round tables and watching the stage show, which was little more than girls in feathers and skimpy costumes performing rote dances to please the patrons. They did please, not so much for any innate talent but because they were some of the prettiest girls Rollin had yet seen in this country.

He tapped his glass quietly on the tabletop. Somewhere down below, outside the perimeters of the clubs walls, Barney and Willy were tunnelling again despite their long day’s work, in an effort to reach the safe as soon as possible. Up here he was still waiting for Cinnamon to appear. If she had snapped anything of note in the house or in the club that evening, he needed to be there to receive the lipstick camera from her and replace it with an identical one.

Rollin glanced towards the door to the back room. It was almost ten now, and Bauer still hadn’t appeared – but as he watched the door half opened and the man himself looked out, casting his eyes over the customers in the bar. Rollin stretched his legs out and lolled back in his chair, smiling. With the sharp suit and the camera around his neck and the notepad under his right hand, he looked every inch the press man.

It was only a few moments later when Bauer came over and sat down at his table.

‘Press,’ Bauer said simply.

Rollin tilted his head once, tapping his fingers on the notepad.

‘Why are you here?’

Rollin smiled. ‘This is one of the best clubs in the city, Herr Bauer. It is a place of interest to the people. I write reviews of places like this. Of course, it helps when the management are friendly.’

Bauer’s eyes narrowed momentarily. ‘Put my name once in your column and your editor will have you immediately fired,’ he said in a level voice. ‘Just a warning.’

‘Well, of course, Herr Bauer,’ Rollin replied smoothly, touching his hat. ‘I want to keep my job just as much as I imagine you want to keep yours.’

‘See that you do,’ Bauer said, and he stood up abruptly and pushed back in through the door to the back room. Rollin was certain that the room acted as a first stop for the business of prostitution, perhaps where patrons were vetted or money exchanged hands. There were enough hardened or abashed or self-conscious looking men slipping through to convince him of that.

Rollin sat back in his chair again and turned his attention back to the dancers, making some notes on his pad for the sake of appearances. He could see through that door. That was Cinnamon’s job.

******

It was almost eleven before Cinnamon appeared. Rollin caught sight of her as she slipped out through the door and walked up to the bar, ordering herself a tall drink. The barman asked for no money. It was obvious that he knew she was Bauer’s woman.

She turned around and leant against the bar, sipping the drink daintily and looking about the room. Her eye was caught for a while by the stage show, but then she put her drink down and began to move about the tables, leaning close to the patrons and speaking to them quietly. Rollin watched her, his hands clenched under the table as a couple of the guys made lewd remarks or reached out to touch her as she turned away. He certainly couldn’t leap to defend her honour, and if he could read Bauer right, he was probably watching and ready to come out himself at any sign of trouble.

Eventually she got to Rollin. She smiled and leant closer and said, ‘Are you having an enjoyable evening, sir?’

Rollin nodded and smiled, but he said in an undertone, ‘Are you all right?’

She nodded. ‘I’m very glad, sir,’ she said aloud.

Then Rollin said in a louder, rather drunk voice, ‘You need to freshen your make up, Fräulein. Too much kissing in the back room, eh?’

‘Oh,’ Cinnamon said, her tone and her smile still gracious. She reached into her small purse and brought out a compact and her lipstick, but she fumbled and dropped the little gold tube on the floor.

‘Let me,’ Rollin said as the tube rolled under the table. He bent down and swiftly shook the lipstick’s twin out of his sleeve, palming Cinnamon’s and straightening up to offer her the new one.

‘Thank you, sir,’ she smiled.

‘There you are. Much better,’ Rollin nodded as she carefully retouched her lips.

He could feel the little metal tube in his sleeve as she walked away. He watched her moving on to the next table, exchanging more pleasantries, acting every inch the hostess. She had spent a considerable time in the back, it seemed, and there must be something of value in the camera for her to risk passing it to him. Later he would set up the bathroom in his apartment as a makeshift darkroom, and he would find out exactly what it was that she had seen.

 


	8. Chapter 8

How much information could you get from someone when you were lying alongside them in a narrow bed, warm under blankets, naked as a creature in the wild? Jim asked himself that as he trailed his fingers along Liesl’s arm and touched the sudden swoop of flesh between ribs and hip and rested his nose against her neck and breathed in her scent. There was a sense of ease melted through his body that he only ever found after satiating himself like this.

Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back. She lay there with the contentment of a cat, her arms flung up onto the pillow behind her head.

‘It has never been like this,’ she murmured.

For a moment Jim felt an uncomfortable, primal unease with the knowledge of her seven months of servitude to Georg Bauer. But he didn’t own her, any more than Bauer had. No matter how you tried to enslave a person, you could never truly own them.

‘It never has,’ he murmured, touching his lips to her neck.

Perhaps it had. Perhaps he had been with women like this before. Perhaps she would blend into blurred memories of different women in different countries, of the forthright women back home in New York City, of the sultry women in Latin America, or the intensity of the Eastern Europeans. Perhaps in time she would be just another woman – but for now, this felt unique and irreplaceable.

He lay there in silence, letting time stretch out. It was almost midnight, and sleep threatened to seep into his mind. Rollin would be wondering where he was. Barney and Willy, if they were on schedule, would be finishing up and coming home for a short, hard sleep and another early start. And he was here, wrapped about a woman he barely knew, his skin sheened with sweat and the feeling of never wanting to move in his bones.

He had to move. He stirred himself and stretched and she moaned a little in protest. She was falling into sleep too. His flank touched the cold shock of the wall behind him, and he gasped. It was a good thing. The chill outside the blankets stopped the sleepiness in its tracks.

He lay there. He bit his lip into his mouth, two parts of his mind vying for control. Everything revolved around guilt. He should be making use of this connection for the good of the mission. He shouldn’t be risking everything by having a casual affair with this woman. But he didn’t want to use her. He didn’t want to hurt her. But he didn’t even know if he could truly trust her.

He wanted a cigarette, but the packet was in his jacket pocket on the other side of the room, through all that cold air. He sat up a little more in bed, letting the cold reach his bare chest. He bit his lip so hard that pain flooded him and made his eyes water.

‘Liesl,’ he asked. ‘What can you tell me about Georg Bauer?’

She stirred sleepily.

‘What?’ she murmured.

He put a hand on her shoulder, looking at the darkness of his fingers against the milky whiteness of her skin. He wondered what she would look like in the summer, with sun to tan her.

‘Can you tell me anything about Georg Bauer?’ he asked her in a low voice. ‘Anything that would help to – to bring him down.’

She gave a sudden harsh laugh that broke the warm atmosphere.

‘I could tell you a thousand things that would bring him down, and he would have me killed for each one,’ she said. ‘But why do _you_ want to know, Otto? You don’t want to bring him down. You want to sell women to him.’

Jim felt that like a kick in the abdomen. Her voice had been free of bitterness up until now.

‘What if I did want to bring him down?’ he said in a low voice.

She suddenly became silent and very still. Jim didn’t need to hear her speak – he could read her feelings. She trusted no one. Suddenly she trusted him even less. He could have been sent there by Bauer. He could be one of Bauer’s men, about to betray her. Or, if she was still under Bauer’s influence – _she_ could be about to betray _him._

‘If you did,’ she said eventually, ‘I could tell you a lot of things, like where he gets his girls from, like how he makes sure every journalist in the country stays quiet about his work, like how he used to watch everything I did through spy holes and cameras and – ’

Jim felt something freeze inside him at that, but then someone knocked on the door so hard that the sound seemed to shatter the night. Jim sat straight up in bed, staring about in the dim light. Liesl sat too, her face drained of colour. She was obviously terrified.

‘He said he’d send men to check on me,’ she whispered. ‘He said I was to answer at any time. He said I wasn’t to see any man...’

‘You’re not seeing me,’ Jim said firmly.

His clothes were in a pile on the floor by the bed. He grabbed them in both hands and began to dress as quickly and efficiently as he could. Thank God his coat and jacket were in here, not in the other room.

‘Go to the door,’ he whispered.

‘But you – ’

‘Put my coffee mug in the sink. Leave yours on the table. Go to the door. Say you were asleep. I won’t be here.’

He had only given the place the briefest of once-overs before he found himself tussled in bed with Liesl. The whole evening had been spent in the luxury of sheets and blankets and naked skin. Now the cold was biting into him and he was dressed in pants and an unbuttoned shirt, his underwear and tie and socks thrust into his pockets, his shoes and jacket grasped in his right hand. There was no way out in the room but the window, and he would have to take it. No matter that he was three floors up. He would have to take it.

He slipped the window up in its frame and put his head out into the frigid air. There was no fire escape on this building. There were just not the regulations here that they had at home. But there was a thick, cast-iron drain pipe. Thank God. He dropped his shoes out to the street below and shrugged into his jacket and coat, then swung himself over the sill and out onto the pipe outside. He could hear Liesl in the other room calling out in response to the banging on the door, but she hadn’t opened it yet. As he pulled the sash window back down with scrabbling fingertips he heard the men finally burst in, and he ducked out of sight.

It was so cold he was afraid his fingers would lose grip. They already felt half numb. His feet were numbing where he was curling his toes into what grip he could find. He shimmied down the freezing pipe trying not to think about what might be going on in the room above. He had to get down before someone saw him, before his fingers gave way and he fell down.

His feet touched the snow-crusted sidewalk and he groped about for his shoes in the dim light. It was so cold his entire body hurt as he slipped his feet into his shoes and pulled the sides of his jacket together and walked briskly down the street. No running. He mustn’t run. He had to look as if he were simply walking home after a long evening rather than running from a woman’s apartment.

He was shaking as he rounded the end of the block and turned into another street. The air was frigid, his breath coming out in white clouds, and even though he had his coat buttoned tightly the shock to his body in comparison with the warmth of Liesl’s bed was too much. He carried on walking, stamping warmth into his legs, wishing he had had time to pull his sock on. But he would be back at the apartment soon. He had to take the long way to be sure he wasn’t being followed, but he wasn’t going to make it that long.

By the time he was approaching the front of the apartment building he was certain that there was no one behind him. He stopped just outside, leaning against the railings and lighting a cigarette, watching the street around him. There was no movement. He could see no telling footprints in the newly fallen snow, and pretty soon his own prints would be covered over.

He pushed the door open, and went inside.

******

There was a light on in the apartment. He opened the door slowly, always cautious, but it was just Rollin, sitting in his armchair with his feet up on the table, a glass of something that looked like scotch in his hand.

‘Well, Casanova,’ Rollin greeted him smoothly.

Jim pushed in through the door, running a hand over his head to brush the melting snow from his hair. It was warm inside, thank God. Rollin had the electric heater on, and Jim walked straight over to stand by the glowing elements, his palms spread to the heat.

He slipped his coat off and laid it over a nearby chair, and the heat started to press through into his jacket.

‘Hasty exit?’ Rollin asked.

Jim looked down at his unbuttoned jacket and shirt. His chest was bare beneath. He had been wearing an undershirt when he went out, hadn’t he? Damn. He bit his lip into his mouth. He must have left that somewhere in Liesl’s room.

‘Something like that,’ he nodded.

He went quickly across the room to the curtains and looked out between the crack. There was a light in Liesl’s apartment, but her curtains were still drawn and he couldn’t tell what might be going on. It was impossible to see if the men were still there.

‘Listen, Rollin, I need you to do me a favour,’ he said.

Rollin looked up at him from his chair.

‘Just check on that girl,’ Jim said. ‘Some guys came to her room – some of Bauer’s guys. They’re keeping tabs on her, seeing that she doesn’t spill anything about Bauer. I want you to go up there in the morning. Go up as a janitor, knock on her door, see she’s all right. I daren’t risk it.’

‘She really has got to you,’ Rollin said, rubbing a finger against his lip. ‘Jim, are you sure – ’

‘No, I’m not sure,’ Jim cut across him. ‘I’m not sure of anything. That’s why I want you to check on her.’

Rollin just looked at him. Jim shook his head, inwardly cursing himself. He had been a fool to get into this situation, to get at all involved with this woman.

‘I’ll check on her,’ he said eventually.

‘Good,’ Jim said.

He sat down in chair, thinking, barely noticing as Rollin got up to make coffee. The scent of coffee grounds drifted to him, but he was visualising Liesl’s apartment, seeing the yale lock on her door just beneath the handle, the positioning of the lights and furniture, the few sundry knick-knacks and ornaments around. They weren’t her ornaments, she had said. They had been there when she moved in.

He saw the lock again, the scratches on the metal. Not surprising it was scratched. A fumble with the keys would do that. He saw the ornaments in the main room and the bedroom... That ugly ceramic construction on the mantelpiece that looked as if it had been woven of strips of clay. The vase in the bedroom that Liesl gazed at and said, ‘It’s nice. It looks brand new. I was surprised this room had such things.’

He opened his eyes wide, staring at Rollin.

‘Her room was bugged. I was stupid...’

Rollin turned from the counter with two cups of coffee in his hands.

‘Are you sure, Jim?’ he asked, instantly serious.

Jim shook his head. ‘No, I’m not sure. I can’t be sure. But of course it was bugged. Bauer keeps such a close tab on his reputation. Of course she was being watched. She said he was going to send men to check on her. She said he watched her all the time before he let her go.’

‘That means he’s watching Cinnamon too,’ Rollin said in a dark voice. ‘Did she mention you by name, Jim? I mean, did she mention Otto Baum by name?’

‘Yes, she did,’ Jim said heavily. ‘She did.’

 


	9. Chapter 9

‘We need to mobilise,’ Jim said tersely.

It was well past one a.m. There was no point in waking Barney and Willy. There was nothing they could do at this time. They needed to be fresh to continue their efforts to reach Bauer’s safe in the morning. But Cinnamon was in danger. Liesl was in danger. She might already be dead. But he couldn’t go to her. That would be running straight into their hands. No matter how much guilt Jim felt welling inside him, he couldn’t compromise the mission any further to go after a girl he had formed an attachment to.

‘You want me to signal Cinnamon?’ Rollin asked, glancing at the little radio that was sitting on the table near Jim’s hand.

Jim shook his head, rubbing his thumb over his lip.

‘Too risky. She might be with him right now. If he already suspects, that would confirm everything for him.’

‘Then how are we going to get her out?’

Jim sighed. ‘Unless she calls us, we don’t. Not right now – not unless we _know_ she’s in danger. There’s no excuse for turning up at Bauer’s house in the middle of the night to get her out. Did she give you a film tonight, Rollin?’

Rollin nodded concisely. ‘I developed it just an hour ago. Plenty of evidence there. All we need, in fact. There are some perfect images I can run with the Berlin Daily, and other more – explicit – ones we can hold back as evidence for any indictment.’

‘So she doesn’t need to be there any longer.’

‘Well, she still might get a chance to take some snaps of his records,’ Rollin shrugged, ‘but no, it’s not vital any more. Not now we have this.’

Jim nodded and looked up, fixing his eyes on Rollin’s face. He felt exhausted, but so wide awake he couldn’t conceive of sleeping.

‘You think you can get in there in the daytime, in your cover as the reporter? She won’t be out at the club again until the evening. That may be too late.’

Rollin nodded. ‘I can do my best,’ he said openly. ‘Jim – what about Liesl Weismuller?’ he asked gravely.

‘What about her?’ Jim asked tersely, rolling up his sleeves and casting about for another cigarette.

‘You’re not going to just leave her.’

‘No,’ Jim said heavily. ‘No, I can’t just leave her.’

‘Don’t get yourself killed,’ Rollin said seriously. ‘Not for something like this.’

‘I never have any intention of getting myself killed,’ Jim replied. ‘Never.’

He sat in the chair, smoking cigarette after cigarette, drinking coffee and then drinking scotch, and then coffee again. After a time Rollin pleaded exhaustion and retired to his room, and Jim sat alone, in the light of one small table lamp, a cigarette between his lips and his eyes focussed on middle distance, thinking. It didn’t matter how long he sat. He needed to work something out. Tomorrow he could run on coffee and adrenaline. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t pulled a few all-nighters before.

******

In the end he did sleep, just for a few hours, with his mind so wired with coffee and inter-meshing thoughts that his dreams were almost constant. He woke with a start, finding himself still in the armchair in the main room, a blanket over his knees and a glimmer of light just starting up through the window opposite.

He unfolded himself from the chair, instantly alert, and stalked through into his bedroom to look through the curtains at the windows opposite. Liesl’s apartment was dark, the curtains closed. There was no sign of movement. No sign of life.

He stood there and stared at the glass panes, sometimes focussing on the windows across the street, sometimes focussing on the dirty pane just a few inches from his eyes. There had to be a way to get Liesl out – if she was still there. And Cinnamon. Cinnamon had to be the priority. She was trusting her team to get her out safely. There had to be _some_ way of ensuring the safety of both women.

He stood looking down into the snowy street, watching as the first few pedestrians of the day tried their luck on the treacherous sidewalks. A woman came out of a doorway with a brush and started to sweep away snow. A couple of state police walked with confidence across the road in their heavy boots. A van drew to a halt and a man came out with what looked like a tray of loaves, heading for a store just a few doors down from the apartment building.

And then it clicked in his mind. It was so brash and so outrageous that it would work. It would have to work.

He turned and went through into Rollin’s room. He was sprawled asleep in his bed, the blankets and sheets pulled up over his shoulders against the chill in the room.

‘Rollin,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Rollin.’

Rollin turned and muttered, and then sat upright, his eyes wide open. ‘What is it, Jim? What time is it?’

‘Half past six. Rollin, I’ve got a plan,’ he said. ‘A way to get Cinnamon out, and a way to get Liesl out too, if I can.’

‘Tell me what you need, Jim,’ Rollin said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

Jim pursed his lips together. ‘I need a uniform for an officer ranked Polizeidirektor or higher, and a uniform for his subordinate, and I need them within the hour. I need them to fit you and me. I’m ditching the plan for you to go in as the reporter. You’re coming with me as my backup. Can you get them?’

‘I can get them,’ Rollin said.

Jim half smiled. There was no moment of hesitation, no look of shock at what was expected of him. Just, _I can get them._

‘What are you going to do?’ Rollin asked.

‘I’m going to walk right into Bauer’s house, and I’m going to take Cinnamon out of there,’ he said. ‘And when you go over the border to Berlin to pass on your article about Bauer’s brothels to the Berlin Daily, you’re going to take Liesl Weismuller with you.’

Rollin nodded. Again, there was no moment of doubt, no questions. Just the nod.

‘I’ll go put the coffee and some toast on for you,’ Jim said, as Rollin swung his legs out of bed.

Jim went back into the main room and set the water to boiling and slipped a few slices of bread under the grill, then he went into his room and opened his suitcase. Inside the lining of the lid was a concealed pocket, and in the pocket, flush against the hard outer shell of the case, were a number of passports and identify cards all made up by Barney before they had left New York. He pulled them out and flicked through them. There were a couple of varying ranks for the Barnstadt police department. Which one he chose would depend on the uniform that Rollin could acquire.

He slipped the papers back into the lid of the case, and went out into the corridor and down to Willy and Barney’s room. He knocked discreetly on the door, and it was opened almost instantly by Willy.

Jim slipped into the room without speaking. Barney was there sitting at the table drinking coffee. Willy was half-dressed in his workman’s clothes, buttoning up his overalls over a clean white undershirt.

‘We’ll be out in a few minutes, Jim,’ Barney said to him, then paused. ‘Trouble?’

‘Could be,’ Jim nodded. ‘Cinnamon’s cover may be compromised. Barney, can you print me up a warrant for entry to Bauer’s house, and an arrest warrant for Cinnamon?’

Barney’s eyes widened momentarily, then he nodded. ‘Can do. I’ve got the equipment in the other room. How soon do you want them?’

‘Now,’ Jim said concisely.

Barney looked at him, blowing his breath out through his lips, but said nothing.

‘Jim, what happened?’ Willy asked in concern.

Jim hesitated. He wasn’t eager to talk about what had gone on last night, about how he had let his feelings possibly bring the whole mission down, but the team deserved to know.

‘Have you eaten?’ Barney asked him, and as Jim shook his head Barney tossed over a buttered roll. ‘Eat that. I’ll get working on the warrants.’

Jim nodded, biting into the fresh roll. Until he swallowed he didn’t realise how hungry he had been. As Barney went to get his equipment he explained quickly and quietly something of what had happened the night before.

‘Are we all right to continue tunnelling?’ Willy asked in concern.

‘No problem there,’ Jim nodded. ‘If anything, this will distract him from the club. You’ll get to the safe today?’

‘We should get close,’ Willy told him. ‘But it’s a lot of dirt. Won’t be able to get into it until tomorrow, probably.’

Jim nodded again. ‘On schedule. Well, I’ve got to go get a car,’ he said, pushing the rest of the roll into his mouth and brushing the crumbs from his lips. ‘Barney, leave those documents in my apartment. I’ll pick them up when I get back. ASAP, right?’

‘ASAP,’ Barney nodded. ‘You’ll have them, Jim.’

******

Out on the streets the air was so cold that it seemed to burn Jim’s tired eyes. It pushed into his hands and feet and threatened to steal all his energy. But he didn’t have a lot to do – not like Rollin. Rollin was tracking down uniforms, and whether he did that by stealing them from a closet or taking them directly from someone wearing them, it was going to be a risky business.

It was no trouble to rent a car at such short notice – not with the amount of money Jim could flash at the man in the rental office. He found himself in charge of a big black saloon Mercedes, that looked polished and expensive enough to belong to an important officer. He drove back to the apartment with great care on the treacherous roads, and found the warrant papers neatly placed in the centre of the table by Barney. They looked perfect.

When Rollin came in a few minutes later he was holding a bag in one hand, and smiling broadly.

‘Who did you have to knock out for those?’ Jim asked, taking the bag from him and looking inside.

‘A couple of officers in the Police Headquarters,’ Rollin told him, hurriedly pulling the uniforms out of the bag. ‘We’ll have to move fast, Jim, and change fast after we’ve got the girls out. The men I drugged will be safe until at least this evening – they won’t wake up – but someone will be sure to miss them, and when Bauer calls in to complain about the warrants they won’t take long putting two and two together.’

‘All right,’ Jim nodded, sorting out the higher ranking uniform from the other. It looked just about the right size, and he had an identity card that would match the rank. He started to strip off his suit and shirt and pulled on the dark uniform as Rollin did the same.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, slipping his identity card into his wallet and patting Rollin on the shoulder. ‘Liesl first.’

‘You’re going to explain on the way, huh?’ Rollin asked him.

‘Not much to explain,’ Jim said with a grin. ‘We’re arresting Liesl Weismuller for acting as a prostitute. Same with Cinnamon. If we’re not attacking Bauer directly, he’s going to be a lot easier to handle.’

‘And if Fräulein Weismuller’s not there?’ Rollin asked meaningfully.

‘Then I’m going to be asking Bauer some questions,’ Jim replied grimly.


	10. Chapter 10

The corridor outside Liesl’s apartment was empty as Jim walked down towards her door. A couple of people had watched him approaching the building with Rollin and had melted away into the background as soon as they had registered the uniforms, but there was hardly anyone inside. At this time of day most of the people had probably left for work. The deserted nature of the place would make things much easier.

Liesl’s door was shut, but it bore signs of recent damage. There were scuffs near the base as if someone had tried to kick it in before she had finally opened it. Jim closed his eyes briefly, hoping to God that she had been sensible, that she had not tried to fight or said anything foolish. He didn’t want to be the cause of her death.

He raised his hand to the panel of the door and knocked, far more softly than he would if there were anyone watching and he was having to keep rigidly to his persona as a police officer on an important mission.

There was no sound or movement from inside, and he pressed his lips together, trying to keep his sense of apprehension pushed down inside his chest. He glanced at Rollin, and registered the concern in his face too.

He knocked again, more loudly this time, and then put his mouth near to the door and called, ‘This is the police. Open up.’

Hopefully she should have no special reason to fear the police. It would not have been the police that Bauer had sent to find her last night.

He knocked again, and called out in an even more stentorian voice, ‘Fräulein Weismuller. This is the police. Open the door.’

Finally, he heard noises inside. He glanced at Rollin, feeling as if his spine had suddenly loosened. Rollin met his eyes, and nodded briefly.

The door opened, and Jim saw Liesl standing there, wrapped in a thin dressing-gown, her hair in disarray and her face bruised. She looked fearful and in pain. A hot feeling of anger spiked inside his chest at the sight, and he pushed through the door with Rollin behind him so that he could get that door shut and protect her from the eyes of anyone who happened to walk past.

Liesl’s eyes widened as she recognised who it was in the official uniform. Jim pressed his finger to his lips instantly, shaking his head.

‘Fräulein Weismuller, you are under arrest,’ he said peremptorily. ‘I’d advise you to get dressed. It’s cold outside.’

Her lips parted. She started to mouth the word, ‘Otto?’ and he shook his head again.

‘Get dressed, Fräulein.’

Abruptly something seemed to click inside her, and she nodded, hurrying away into the bedroom. She came back neatly dressed in a skirt and sweater, and Jim picked up her coat and purse from a chair and handed them to her.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked as she pushed her arms into her coat.

She sounded fearful, and Jim touched a hand to her arm, squeezing gently.

‘To the police station, of course,’ he told her, letting none of his empathy come through into his voice. ‘Come on.’

As they walked back through the hallways Liesl was completely silent. It wasn’t until she was in the back of the big black car that she finally spoke, her voice desperate and strained.

‘Otto, what is this?’ she asked. ‘What are you doing? _Who_ are you? You are in the police?’

Jim shook his head, twisting round in the front seat to look at her as Rollin drove, wishing that he could have been seated in the back with her.

‘I am not in the police, Liesl,’ he said in a low, firm voice, ‘any more than I am a trader in women. You need to trust me. I’m trying to get you to safety.’

She stared at him, seemingly trying to read some truth in his face under the layers of deception to which she had been exposed.

‘Why?’ she asked eventually.

‘Because I care,’ Jim said. ‘And we’ve got a friend who’s in danger too. I want to get both of you to safety.’

‘Away from Herr Bauer and his men?’ Liesl asked disbelievingly.

‘Away from Herr Bauer and his men,’ Jim nodded. ‘Over the border if we can – and into West Berlin.’

Distrust mingled with amazement on her face. Jim nodded forward down the road. Bauer’s town house was just a few hundred yards away.

‘Our friend’s in there,’ he said. ‘She’s in danger. Now, I need you to trust me, Liesl. Will you trust me?’

She stared at him, fixing her eyes on his, trying to read something in them. Then she nodded.

‘For now, Otto,’ she said quietly.

‘I’m going to lock you in this car when we leave it,’ he said. ‘I’m going to leave the keys with you – you understand? If we’re not back within an hour, you drive it to 271 Eichenstrasse, and go up to my apartment – that’s apartment 311 – and wait there for either me or my friends. Can you do that?’

She nodded again.

Rollin drew the car in to the side of the road, and stopped. Jim fixed his eyes on Liesl’s once more.

‘271 Eichenstrasse, apartment 311. You’ll remember that?’

‘I will remember,’ she nodded.

‘Good.’

Jim pressed his hand briefly over hers, then got out of the car and slammed the door.

‘Ready?’ he asked Rollin, pulling Barney’s sheaf of forged papers out of his pocket.

‘I’m ready,’ Rollin nodded.

******

It took only a brief flash of their police identification to get in at the townhouse’s tall gates. Jim looked up at the tall building with some apprehension. There were a lot of rooms in there for Cinnamon to be hidden in, if Bauer gained enough warning. He could already see the man at the gate stepping back into his booth and moving toward the telephone. Rollin moved like lightning, though, stepping after the man and putting his hand over the guard’s.

‘No warning calls to the house, thank you,’ he said smoothly, jerking the cable out of the wall and cutting it with a penknife.

The guard looked dismayed rather than angry, and Rollin shrugged.

‘You’re trying to do your job, I’m trying to do mine,’ he said amiably.

He left the man in the booth and joined Jim on the path. Together they strode to the door and Jim rang the bell in a peremptory way, his face grim. The door was answered by some kind of butler in a dark suit, and Jim flashed his identification and the forged papers in front of him.

‘Herr Bauer is not here – ’ the butler faltered.

‘We do not need Herr Bauer to be here,’ Jim said in a crisp voice, pushing past the man without preamble. ‘We are authorised to search these premises for Greta Hoch, suspected of immoral conduct. Do not try to interfere.’

He moved on down the wide foyer, looking to the left and right, his eyes taking in ornaments, paintings, the stairs and the many doors leading to other rooms. It was good that Bauer was out of the way and unable to interfere, and at least Cinnamon would not be trying to evade capture – but it was almost certain that Bauer’s butler was now on the telephone trying to reach the minister and warn him of what was happening.

‘Look for her room,’ he murmured to Rollin, and the man nodded, making towards the stairs. Even if Cinnamon were downstairs, Rollin would be able to recover any incriminating possessions from her room.

Jim carried on through the house, opening doors and glancing through them before shutting them again with a bang. He jerked open a door to a small sitting room, startling a woman who was kneeling and sweeping ashes out of the grate, but before she could speak he shut the door again, moving on. Then he opened the door to what was obviously Bauer’s study. His eyes flicked over sheaves of paper left out on the desk, and the locked filing cabinets along the walls. It would be so easy to rifle through those documents. He pushed the door closed behind him and stepped right up to the desk, gently pushing at the top papers with his fingers.

******

Upstairs Rollin walked along corridors that were beautifully decorated, but to his mind devoid of any soul. There was no personal touch in this place. It said nothing about Bauer except that he was obsessed with appearance.

He pushed open a door with his fingertips and looked in on an empty guest room. There was another, and then another, and he wondered what Bauer did with all these rooms day to day. Then he opened one to his left, and drew in breath silently as he saw Cinnamon standing in front of a full length mirror, dressed in no more than her underwear. A twin set and skirt were laid out on the bed, but as yet she hadn’t even reached for them.

He stood staring for a moment at the curves of her body and the suggestive lines of the underwear, before shaking himself, and clearing his throat just as she reached out for the clothes. Cinnamon jumped and spun, and Rollin gave her his most charming smile. He was gratified to see that it brought a blush to her cheeks even as she recognised who it was in the doorway.

Speechless, and obviously aware that she might be under surveillance, she began to pull on her clothes with a kind of flustered speed, and Rollin snapped back into character, saying, ‘Fräulein Hoch, you are under arrest on suspicion of immoral conduct. Come with me please.’

Her mouth worked for a moment, her eyes wide in a look that always reminded him of a kitten. She was perfect at looking innocent, but he knew she had claws sheathed and ready to use.

‘Just a moment,’ she faltered, pulling on her skirt. ‘Will you give me a moment?’

Rollin bowed graciously, watching as she buttoned her shirt and pushed her arms into the sleeves of the cardigan..

‘May I get my purse?’ she asked as she slipped her feet into high heeled shoes.

‘Be quick, Fräulein,’ Rollin said sternly.

Cinnamon turned to the dressing table and gathered a few things together into her purse, then turned back to Rollin, holding out her arms as if she expected him to cuff her.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Rollin told her, taking hold of her upper arm.

‘Trouble?’ she murmured as he walked her out of the door, and he nodded minutely.

‘Come on. Downstairs,’ he told her, jerking her forward as a maid peeked out of a door down the corridor. ‘There better not be any more of your kind around this place.’

‘And what is _my kind?_ ’ Cinnamon asked him in a raised, indignant voice, pulling back a little. ‘I’ll thank you to know – ’

‘That’s enough, Fräulein,’ Rollin snapped, and she subsided into silence.

Jim was at the bottom of the stairs, buttoning something into his top pocket.

‘Ah, you have the Fräulein,’ he nodded with deep satisfaction, meeting Rollin’s eyes. ‘Let’s go.’

He strode to the front door, ignoring the flustered looking butler who was still holding the phone receiver in his hand. He flung the door open and the cold winter air rushed past them as they walked outside.

‘Jim, what’s going on?’ Cinnamon murmured as soon as they were far enough from the house to not be overheard.

‘Bauer may be onto us,’ Jim replied, his lips almost motionless. ‘My fault. We had to pull you out.’ He took hold of Cinnamon’s other arm and hurried her on towards the high gates. ‘Come on.’

There was a sudden yell from behind them of, ‘Officer!’ and Jim’s pace quickened.

‘So he got through to Bauer, then,’ he murmured. ‘Still doesn’t know who we are, maybe.’

‘At least the phone’s cut off at the gate,’ Rollin reminded him.

The guard at the gate looked at them quizzically as they approached, aware of the calls from the butler at the door of the house.

‘If Herr Bauer wants to argue with our orders, I suggest he go to the Präsidium and file a complaint there,’ Jim said tersely to the man. ‘Now open the gate. I am in a hurry.’

The guard gave one more look back towards the house, but Jim waved at the gates impatiently, his expression grim, and the man pressed the button that opened the gates without further argument. The three passed through quickly and into the street outside.

‘This way,’ Jim said, turning Cinnamon towards where the car still sat, just a few hundred yards away. ‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’


	11. Chapter 11

The street was empty, but Jim couldn’t help having the prickling feeling in his spine that at any moment a police car would roar up to investigate why officers had raided Bauer’s house with no recorded orders. It was always that way as they walked away from a mission – that feeling of success mingled with an adrenaline-filled suspicion that all could still go terribly wrong. He never felt quite relaxed until he was back home in his New York apartment with the fire burning and a glass of scotch in his hand.

The car was still there, though, and Liesl was still sitting there in the back seat, her eyes intent and suspicious as she watched the street around her. They got into the car quickly and wordlessly, slamming the doors behind them.

‘All right, let’s go,’ Jim said, turning the key in the ignition and moving off down the road.

Cinnamon had slipped into the back seat with Liesl, and Liesl was eyeing her warily.

‘Cinnamon’s with us,’ Jim told her tersely, his eyes on the rear view mirror. There was no one following them, it seemed, but still, he would take a circuitous route back to the apartment.

‘Then she was a plant,’ Liesl said, sounding stunned. ‘All of this – everything.’

‘Everything,’ Jim nodded, his eyes flicking between the road ahead and the rear view mirror. ‘All of it designed to bring Bauer down – nothing more.’

‘Then you – ’ she began.

Jim pressed his lips together, suffused by a feeling of guilt. She subsided into silence. In the mirror he could just see Cinnamon’s hand slipping sideways and closing around Liesl’s. He was glad that Cinnamon was there to give her that comfort.

******

Back in the apartment Jim shut the curtains and carefully locked the door while Rollin spurred the heaters into action and Cinnamon busied herself making coffee on the little stove in the kitchen area. Liesl sat in an armchair with her coat still tightly wrapped around her, looking stunned.

Jim stood at the window for longer than was necessary, checking the street for signs of police even though it seemed obvious that no one had followed them. He didn’t know what to say to Liesl. She was obviously torn between feelings of gratitude and betrayal, and he didn’t know how to explain things to her with Cinnamon and Rollin here in the room with them. What could he do for the woman anyway? It wasn’t as if he could arrange for her to come back to the States, and even if he did, what would she do then? He couldn’t be in a long-term relationship with anybody, not in his job. He should never have become involved. But it was too late now. All he could do was to try to repair the damage.

He turned his head a little and looked at Liesl out of the corner of his eye. Something about her profile and the wave of her dark hair made his heart jump a little in his chest. It was so easy to fall, and so hard to recover from the landing. It could be that he felt more for her than she did for him. After all, what had they really shared together? Eye contact over coffee, and one night in a warm bed? He had been watching her for longer than she had known of his existence.

‘All right,’ he said abruptly, turning from the window, showing no sign of his thoughts in his face. ‘Here’s what we do. Rollin, you’ve got all the evidence from Cinnamon that you need. You need to get that story written up and into the Berlin Daily. I want you to take Cinnamon and Liesl into Germany and over into the Western Zone. We’ll rendezvous there once Barney and Willy have completed their part in this.’

‘Jim, how are we going to get Fräulein Weismuller out of the country?’ Rollin asked seriously. ‘Barney’s tied up underground – he won’t have time for faking papers or knocking up hidden compartments.’

‘We’ll think of a way,’ Jim said tersely. ‘There’s always a way. Once she’s there, it’s your job to be certain she stays there.’

He turned back to the window, his mind racing through possibilities. There had to be a way. He couldn’t just dump her here, after getting her into so much danger with Bauer’s people. Had it really become that they were incapable of rigging up needed equipment without Barney to hand?

He looked around again, watching as Cinnamon bent towards Liesl, offering her a black coffee in a delicate china cup. Liesl’s fingers were closing around the saucer, taking it from Cinnamon’s hands. It was hard to tell whose fingers were whose.

He drew in breath suddenly.

‘Cinnamon, how many passports do you have with you?’ he asked abruptly. ‘What identities?’

She turned to him, raising her eyebrows. ‘Greta Hoch’s, of course. And I’m on your passport as your wife. I also have an identity as a reporter for the Berlin Daily that mirrors Rollin’s, and one as a nurse with the German Red Cross.’

Jim nodded, and looked over at Rollin. ‘Rollin, can you make Liesl look like Cinnamon?’

Liesl looked across at the other woman, startled. ‘Well, no, of course – ’ she began.

‘Oh, I should think so,’ Rollin cut across, unfolding himself from his chair and coming over to look more closely at Liesl. ‘Similar bone structure. The hair should be no problem. She’ll have to have contacts to change her eye colour, of course, but the build’s there.’

Liesl looked at Rollin as if he had gone mad, but Jim smiled.

‘Good. How long will it take?’

Rollin looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got everything I need here. If Cinnamon can sit for the mask and then do Fräulein Weismuller’s hair, I’ll have the mask made in a couple of hours.’

‘I can do that,’ Cinnamon said smoothly, cocking her head sideways as she assessed Liesl’s hair. ‘It’ll be quite simple to make her match the passport.’

Jim nodded. ‘In that case – Rollin, you and Liesl will leave the country together using the press passports. Cinnamon will leave later with the rest of us. We can’t have two identical people trying to leave the country at the same time.’

‘Oh, I think that could be quite fun,’ Cinnamon said in a serene tone. ‘But I’m happy to wait here with you, Jim.’

She took a sip of her coffee, then pushed her hair away from her face and leant back in her chair, saying, ‘I’m ready when you are, Rollin.’

‘I’ll have the plaster mixed by the time you’ve finished that coffee,’ he promised her.

******

No matter how many times Jim had seen Rollin transforming himself or another into a completely different person, it was strange to see Liesl being turned into a carbon-copy of Cinnamon, right down to the silver-blonde hair and the narrow-bridged nose and the wide blue-green eyes. When she stood in the doorway of the bedroom and looked at him, he had to look twice before he could perceive anything of Liesl in her. Of course, it was there. There was something about the way she held herself, the way her lips were pushed together with a subtle sign of stress, the way her hands were curled at her sides – but on the surface, she was Cinnamon.

‘ _Now_ I believe it,’ she said simply, glancing sideways at her reflection in the glass of a picture on the wall.

Cinnamon moved past her out of the bedroom, looking smugly satisfied at what she and Rollin had created. Their clothes were different, but still, they looked like the most identical of twins.

‘Liesl, can I have a moment?’ Jim asked, stepping closer and gesturing her back into the bedroom.

Liesl looked at him, then dropped her eyes. No amount of disguise could hide the suspicion in her. She nodded briefly, and he followed her back into the room.

‘Did any of it mean anything?’ she asked him before he could speak.

Jim felt something tighten inside his chest, and he nodded.

‘ _All_ of it,’ he promised her, moving close enough to her that he could smell and sense that this was Liesl and not Cinnamon in front of him. ‘The instant you were out of Bauer’s employment I should have left you alone. But I didn’t. I came after _you._ I shouldn’t have. It was unprofessional of me. But I did.’

‘You’re not even Otto, are you?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘My name’s Jim. I can’t say more than that.’

She smiled weakly, her gaze lifting to meet his. He moved closer again, filled with the urge to kiss her, but she drew back.

‘This doesn’t feel – safe,’ she said, gesturing towards the mask that covered her face. ‘I feel as if it would fall off if I sneezed.’

Jim laughed quietly. ‘Oh, Rollin’s better than that,’ he promised her, ‘but I understand. It’s strange for me, too. Cinnamon’s a very good friend. A _friend_ ,’ he promised her, at her slightly suspicious look. ‘Nothing more.’

She laughed then, nodding. ‘She’s something more of a friend to Herr Hand, perhaps?’

Jim glanced at the door. He was never quite sure what _did_ go on between Rollin and Cinnamon, if anything did.

‘Perhaps,’ he said. He turned his wrist to look at his watch. ‘Liesl, you’ll have to be going soon. You’ll remember what we’ve all told you? Just keep your cool, let Rollin do the talking as much as you can. Look them in the eye, don’t give them a reason to suspect.’

‘I spent a lot of time acting for Georg Bauer,’ she told him, a hardness edging her voice. ‘I know how to hide my feelings when I must.’

Jim bit back his feelings at those words. His anger was for Bauer, not for her.

‘Good,’ he said, laying a hand on her cheek – Cinnamon’s cheek, it appeared. The false skin even felt like skin. The warmth of Liesl’s blood permeated the soft membrane. ‘Then I will see you in Berlin,’ he promised. ‘Rollin will look after you. Trust him.’

‘I will trust him,’ she nodded. ‘ _You_ trust him.’

******

After Liesl was gone, Jim sat in one of the tired armchairs in the apartment and drank Scotch. Cinnamon left him alone. There was nothing either of them could do at this point, either to help Rollin and Liesl or to help Barney and Willy. Cinnamon had given up her chance to escape the country early to let Liesl escape in her place, and Jim didn’t know how to properly express his gratitude for that. He knew it was the kind of the thing that any of them would have done, but still, Cinnamon was risking her life or her freedom for a woman she hardly knew and to whom she owed nothing.

‘I appreciate it,’ Jim said after a while, looking up from his drink. The alcohol had just taken the edge off his tension and made the evening seem a bit more friendly to him.

Cinnamon looked up from her book, seeming startled at the sudden noise in the quiet room. She registered what he had said, then shrugged. ‘You don’t need to tell me that, Jim.’

‘Maybe not,’ Jim said, ‘But I appreciate it.’

‘You should go get some sleep,’ Cinnamon told him. ‘Barney won’t be through to the safe until the morning, will he?’

Jim looked at his watch. It was pushing close to ten p.m., and the night’s cold was pressing through the windows no matter how tightly they kept the curtains closed.

‘Not until the morning,’ he nodded. ‘Then we’ll need to be on hand to take the money to various banks. It’ll all go much more quickly with us there too. Take a lot of the heat off of Barney and Willy.’

Cinnamon nodded. ‘And we won’t hear from Rollin until the morning, either,’ she said pertinently.

‘No,’ Jim said. ‘No, they’ll still be travelling...’

‘They’ll both be fine,’ Cinnamon told him quietly.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Jim nodded with a quick smile. ‘Sure.’

He stood up abruptly, taking his glass over to the little kitchen area and putting it down with a sharp sound on the surface by the sink.

‘Goodnight, Cinnamon,’ he said.

‘Goodnight, Jim,’ she replied quietly.

In his room he lay on his bed fully clothed, his head resting back on the pillow and his eyes unfocussed, staring at the light fitting that hung from the ceiling. In the dim glow cast by the lamp by the bed everything in the room looked strange. He wondered if Rollin and Liesl _were_ making out fine. They’d be just about reaching the border by now. But he wouldn’t know until tomorrow. He wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway. It was up to Rollin to get Liesl through into East Germany, and then to get her all the way through to West Berlin. It was up to Rollin to get Cinnamon’s clandestinely taken photographs and facts made up into a neat news story and printed in the newspaper. If he succeeded, it was possible that Jim’s first knowledge of it would be to see the story on sale in one of the local shops. Then the pressure really would be on, as Bauer started to feel himself attacked from all sides.

There was nothing Jim could do right now to further any of this, and that was the kind of time he hated most of all. All he could do now was sleep, and make sure that the final part of the mission went off properly tomorrow.

 


	12. Chapter 12

With the light of morning pushing through the curtains everything seemed far more positive. All going well, this should be the last day of the mission. If they got everything finished off they could be out of here by nightfall, and perhaps on a plane before the next dawn broke.

Jim stood in his room carefully folding and packing clothes back into his suitcase. He still had to wash and shave, but that would only take a couple of minutes, and soon everything would be packed in the trunk of his car, ready for a getaway. He would be dressed as a businessman in order to deposit his part of the money stolen by Barney and Willy. Cinnamon would be chic and well-presented and waiting for her portion of the funds in a small Volkswagen Beetle. After taking it to various banks around the city they would all rendezvous at a pre-arranged site in the warehouse district, and from there, with a swift change of licence plate on Jim’s non-descript car, they would leave the city.

Somewhere in Berlin Rollin would be putting together his story for the Berlin Daily. Liesl was probably safe and going through the process of rebuilding her life. Jim felt a moment of wistfulness for that kind of life. She could turn her back on things like this, hopefully forever. He pushed himself into them, of his own volition, every few weeks. But he didn’t feel right without that surge of adrenaline to keep him going. Too long at home and he went a little crazy.

The little pocket radio buzzed, and Jim snatched it up, instantly alert.

‘Barney? Trouble?’

‘Something like that,’ Barney replied, his voice distorted through the speaker. ‘We’ve just got through to the back of the safe and I’ve punched one drill hole through, but there’s light in there, Jim. Someone must have the door open, and from the noises I think Bauer’s down there.’

Jim pressed his lips together, his gaze slipping to his suitcase and car keys lying nearby.

‘He might be gone in a couple of minutes, Barney,’ he suggested. ‘Can you see anything useful through the hole?’

‘Give me a moment, Jim.’ There was a muffled half-silence, and then Barney’s voice came again, ‘Jim, I think he’s counting the takings. He’s got the money out on the table. He could be there for a long time.’

‘Damn,’ Jim murmured. He hesitated, eyes unfocussed, considering what to do. ‘You and Willy hang on,’ he said abruptly. ‘Give me ten minutes, and I’ll get him out of there. But I don’t know how long I’ll be able to give you. Once he’s out of that room, _move!_ ’

******

The club was still closed when Jim arrived, the blinds drawn on the windows and the main door unyielding when he turned the handle. Jim stood for a moment before the blind-fronted building, then his eyes turned to the alley at the side. It was a grim place, half-blocked with dirty snow that had been blown or swept from the streets. But there was a side door down there, one that the dancers and musicians and bar staff used, and when he tried it he found that it was open and unguarded.

He stood for a moment with the door cracked open, looking inside. Then he pushed it open with a bang, letting it slam into the wall behind so hard that paint and plaster flaked to the floor. He swaggered into the corridor and through into the back rooms of the club, dressed in the guise of Otto Baum, last night’s stubble still on his cheeks, the scent of alcohol on his breath, and an ugly expression on his face.

‘Hey!’ he shouted roughly, banging his fist on one of the doors. ‘Hey!’

There was no indignant response, and he pushed further into the club, shouting more loudly. Eventually a wary looking man that Jim recognised as the barman came out into the corridor, holding a pint glass in his hand.

Jim paused momentarily, recognising that the glass could be turned into a nasty weapon with one strike against something hard. He would have to risk it.

‘Hey, I want to see Bauer,’ he growled, his voice slightly slurred as if he was reasonably drunk.

‘Herr Bauer’s not here,’ the man said, looking shifty.

‘He’s here. I know he is. I saw him come in,’ Jim lied. ‘Where is he? Where is the bastard?’

‘What do you want with him?’ the barman asked warily, shifting the glass from hand to hand.

‘I want Greta back,’ Jim growled, taking advantage of the man’s nervousness to push a little closer to him. ‘I want to see that bastard scum and I want him to give Greta back to me.’

‘Herr Bauer is busy,’ the barman told him, stepping backwards, edging a little closer t the door behind him.

In one movement Jim lunged forward and grabbed at the man’s throat with his right hand, pulling out a revolver with his left and levelling it at his head. The glass dropped to the floor and smashed as the man flailed and then registered the gun, and froze.

‘I want to see Bauer,’ he said again, his voice harsh and so low it was almost a whisper. He pulled the man a little toward him by his collar and then smashed him back against the wall. ‘So get him.’

‘All right, all right,’ the man said, all the fight gone from him at the sight of the revolver. ‘I’ll get him. He’s – downstairs. Just – just wait here.’

‘I’ll come, if it’s all the same to you,’ Jim told him.

He followed the man to the end of the corridor to a door marked ‘cellar.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Jim warned him as he saw the man glance at a payphone affixed to the wall nearby.

‘All right,’ the man said again. He opened the door and called, ‘Herr Bauer, there’s a man here – ’

A shout came up from below. ‘Not now, Friedrich, I’m busy.’

Jim pushed past the barman to look down into the brightly lit cellar where Bauer was stood by a table covered in neat piles of notes, intent on noting something down in a large cash book.

‘Now, Bauer,’ Jim said grimly, angling his gun down the tired wooden stairs at the man.

Bauer jumped at the new voice, almost sending a pile of notes tumbling.

‘Now,’ Jim repeated, giving the gun a meaningful jerk. ‘Up here where I can see you. I want to talk to you.’

Bauer’s eyes moved over the piles of cash and the open door of the safe behind him, then he looked back to the sleek black revolver, and nodded.

‘All right, Herr Baum,’ he nodded.

He closed the cash book and came up the stairs, taking great care to lock the cellar door behind him.

‘What do you want, Herr Baum?’ he asked once they were together in the tatty corridor.

‘You come in here,’ Jim said, kicking a door open with his foot and gesturing both men into the room behind. It looked like a dressing room for the dancers, full of mirrors and bulbs that were not switched on, the counters scattered with make-up and small items of costume.

‘What is this all about, Baum?’ Bauer asked again, glancing between Jim and the door as if he was anxious to get back to his money.

‘You sit down,’ Jim said, shoving Bauer roughly into a chair. ‘You too,’ he told the barman. ‘I want to talk to you about Greta, Bauer. I want her back.’

Bauer stared at him.

‘It was a simple transaction, Baum,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t give girls back.’

‘Like hell you don’t,’ Jim growled. By now Bauer must know that Cinnamon had supposedly been taken by the police, but Jim didn’t expect him to admit to that. ‘I’ve heard about how you treat women in your house. Those ‘special’ rooms you have.’

Bauer looked even more bewildered, understandably so, since Jim had largely fabricated his drunken argument for Greta’s return on his way over here. Of all the things that could be said about Bauer, he rarely physically hurt the women in his possession – at least, not personally.

Of course, if Bauer knew the right place to look he would find the woman that he thought of as Greta Hoch just a few blocks away, sitting at the wheel of a small car, waiting to take his money and deposit it the accounts owned by Bauer’s political opposition. The plan had changed very little on the discovery that Bauer was in the cellar with the safe open as Barney and Willy were drilling through into it. The only problem was that Jim was dressed more like a bank robber than a sleek businessman now, complete with stubble and mussed hair, so Cinnamon would be depositing the money alone and meeting Jim and the others later.

Jim slipped a look at his watch. Bauer had been out of the cellar for about two minutes. He wanted to give Barney and Willy at least ten to complete the breach of the back of the safe and to get the money. He only hoped the hole would be large enough for one of them to scramble through and get the stuff off the table. But the door to the cellar was locked, at least. Only Bauer could get down there, so it was only Bauer he needed to keep out of the way.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Baum,’ Bauer said carelessly, as if he could shrug away the gun and the angry man holding it. ‘There are no ‘special’ rooms in my house, and Fräulein Hoch is perfectly well treated.’

‘Yeah, that’s what you’d have me believe,’ Jim growled. ‘I want to see her, though. I want her _back._ ’

‘Herr Baum, there is no – ’ Bauer began, but Jim lunged forward and grabbed hold of his jacket.

‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Get up and take me to her.’

‘I can’t take you to her,’ Bauer said eventually. ‘She’s not at the house today.’

‘I’m going to show you what happens to men that treat women like you do,’ Jim snarled, shaking the man by the front of his jacket.

Bauer tore himself away from Jim’s hands, looking to his barman and then back at Jim. Jim’s fear was that he would tell the barman to take the key and put the money back in the safe himself. Better that, Bauer would think, than that it was left out on the table. Jim didn’t want to end up shooting the barman and it was imperative that he didn’t kill Bauer and make a martyr out of him.

‘Come on,’ Jim told him fiercely, pushing him towards the door. ‘Outside, in the alley. And you can watch,’ he told the barman. ‘Just to see it’s all square.’

Once they were out in the alley he hauled off and punched Bauer as hard as he could. Bauer staggered back against the wall, then recovered, coming at Jim with his fists up. Briefly Jim recalled reading that Bauer had been a member of a boxing club during his university studies – and then Bauer hit him, and the explosion of pain in his jaw sent him stumbling into one of the icy piles of drifted snow.

The pain galvanised him, and he started forward again, letting adrenaline take over as he swung a fist into Bauer’s midriff. He needed to keep this up for maybe fifteen minutes – or to put Bauer out cold so he wouldn’t think of going back into that cellar for a while. But it was not going to be easy.

******

Near Barney and Willy’s fake roadwork signs Cinnamon waited in her little Volkswagen, her hands on the steering wheel in impeccable leather driving gloves. Every now and then she glanced at her watch as the second hand sped round, the minute hand following it with a sluggish pace. Any moment now Barney and Willy should be emerging with the cash, and she had her escape route committed to memory. Barney and Willy would strike the tent and the signs and get into the van, and no sign would be left above ground of what they had done.

She wondered how Jim was getting on. He hadn’t had time to be anything more than vague about his plan, which was about distracting Bauer in some way and then meeting up with the others as planned in the warehouse district at the pre-arranged time. Cinnamon was to deposit more money than previously planned at each bank, so that she wasn’t delayed with extra stops.

The tent flap moved, and Willy pushed out through the striped fabric, a canvas bag clutched to his chest. As Barney came out behind him Willy passed the bag through the car door to Cinnamon.

‘Any trouble?’ she asked quietly.

‘Jim kept it clear,’ Willy said concisely. ‘Go. We’ll meet you later.’

Cinnamon nodded, put the car into gear, and went.

******

The dirty snow in the alley was reddened with spots of blood as Jim hauled himself up off the floor, pressing a hand to his ribs. He wondered if one of them was broken, but he considered that a light punishment considering Bauer could have taken his gun from him once he’d felled him and shot him in the back. But Bauer was too much of the politician for that. He wasn’t beyond kicking a man he had already punched to the floor, but there was no need to go further. No need to involve himself in the nasty murder of a man who, left alive, wouldn’t dare to go to the authorities anyway because his only business was the illegal trafficking of women.

Jim stayed kneeling for a few moments, his hands splayed on the ground. Half of his face was numb from what he thought might have been a few minutes of unconsciousness in the snow. His nose had evidently been bleeding, but it had stopped now. He was alone. Bauer must have gone back inside. But he couldn’t help that. He just had to hope that Barney and Willy had completed their task in time, and got out before they were caught.

Jim jerked himself awkwardly to his feet and walked cautiously out of the alley, choosing to come out on the street behind the club instead of in front. If Bauer was inside now it was only a matter of time before he discovered the theft of his money, and there was a chance he might realise that ‘Otto Baum’ had been deliberately distracting him.

He glanced at himself in a window, seeing that the orbit of his left eye was bruised and swollen and there was blood smeared across his mouth and cheek. He pulled out a handkerchief and tried to gingerly wipe some of the mess away from his bruised face, but getting away from the club was more important than the blood on him. He turned his coat collar up, tilted his head down, and walked as fast as his throbbing ribs would let him.

He allowed himself the luxury of a hot-water wash and a shave before he changed and finished packing up to leave the apartment. He still looked as if he had been beaten up, but at least he was dressed now in a smart suit, his hair was brushed, and he was clean. He carried his case downstairs, and dropped off the key with the janitor on the first floor, parrying the man’s questions about the state of his face with an embarrassed-seeming few sentences about a night out drinking. Once out of the place he got into his car and drove towards the warehouse district to the pre-arranged rendezvous. Barney and Willy were already there, cleaned up and changed out of their workmen’s overalls, and they slipped into the back seat of Jim’s car and settled down.

‘You did it,’ Jim said, more as a statement than a question.

‘Thanks to you,’ Barney nodded, leaning forward to look harder at Jim’s reflection in the rear-view mirror. ‘Are you all right, Jim? What did you do?’

‘I distracted Bauer,’ Jim said succinctly, pressing a hand lightly to his ribs. When he had washed in the apartment he had seen the vivid flush of an impressive bruise on his chest in the shape of a man’s shoe.

‘You sure you can drive, Jim?’ Willy asked in concern. Always conscious of health and well-being, he had noticed instantly that Jim was avoiding twisting his torso.

‘I can drive,’ Jim nodded. ‘I’ll get it looked at once we’re over the border.’

In the mirror he caught Barney exchanging a glance with Willy.

‘Get in the back, Jim,’ Barney said firmly. ‘I’ll drive.’

Jim met his eyes in the mirror. He knew that tone. Barney didn’t often go against Jim’s orders, but when he did Jim knew he would be like a dog with a bone. He didn’t argue. He just got out of the driver’s seat and painfully got into the back of the car. It was as he was settling himself on the seat that Cinnamon’s Volkswagen drew up, and Willy vacated his back seat to allow her in to sit next to Jim.

‘Broken ribs, I reckon,’ Willy said succinctly at Cinnamon’s concerned look. ‘See what you can do for him.’

‘Really, you don’t need to – ’ Jim began, but Cinnamon reached under the seat in front and pulled out a first aid kit and began to rummage through for iodine and bandages.

‘Really, I do need to,’ she said as the car moved off.

‘You deposited the money all right?’ Jim asked her, wincing a little as she dabbed iodine on a split in his cheek.

‘And spoke to Rollin, too,’ Cinnamon said with a smile. ‘His story’s going to the presses as we speak. It’s going to be the front cover exposé of all of Georg Bauer’s little vices.’

Jim grinned, and then winced again at the movement of his bruised face muscles. Even Bauer wouldn’t easily talk that story down – not with the photographs that went along with it.

 


	13. Epilogue

Jim felt as if he had slept for most of the car journey, only drifting in and out at checkpoints and the occasional coffee break. He had to suspect that Cinnamon had slipped something into his drink on the first of these breaks, because he hadn’t been sleepy until after that first black coffee. But he didn’t mind. With the heady mix of painkillers and sleeping tablets in his system it was enough to know that they were safe, all of them. They had left Barnstadt behind and the mission had been a success. When Barney had tuned the radio in to one of the local stations the first story had been the shocking exposé of Georg Bauer, and the second the incredible anonymous donation of money that had been made to the opposition parties in Barnstadt. No mention had been made of the theft in Bauer’s club, but that didn’t surprise Jim at all. Bauer wouldn’t be likely to publicise the theft of money raised from alcohol, gambling, and women.

‘The first thing you’re doing in the West is seeing a doctor,’ Cinnamon told him firmly in one of his waking moments, and he agreed meekly but distractedly, watching the countryside moving past the windows outside the car. Apart from the permanent, half-numbed pain in his ribs nothing seemed very real at all. Somehow they had emerged from another mission safe and alive and successful, and that feeling of success was all that he needed to keep him going.

He slipped into sleep again, and when he woke he found himself tucked firmly into a bed in a high-ceilinged room, with the constriction of bandages about his chest and some kind of dressing on his cut face. He looked around cautiously, praying this was not some German hospital – but it seemed to be a hotel room rather than a health institution. As he turned his head to the left he looked into Rollin’s smiling face.

‘Nice to have you back with us,’ Rollin told him from his seat by the bed. There was a copy of the Berlin Daily folded on the side table, but the picture on the front told Jim it must be a newer copy than the one that held the exposé of Georg Bauer.

‘Have I been asleep for – ’ Jim began.

‘Only for a day and a night,’ Rollin told him. ‘Long enough for a doctor to see to those ribs. Two of them are cracked, by the way, and he doesn’t advise you move around too much for now.’

‘Cinnamon – ’

‘Drugged you to the eyeballs,’ Rollin nodded cheerfully. ‘We all know it’s the only way of keeping you still in bed.’

Jim smiled gingerly. His cheek was stiff and his nose still felt swollen and aching. Most of his body ached in some way – but it was the feeling of wounds that were healing, not fresh.

‘I don’t intend to go anywhere for now,’ he promised.

‘Good,’ Rollin nodded. ‘Because you don’t need to go anywhere. I phoned in to the Secretary. He’s very pleased with the outcome of the mission and quite happy to pay for a few days luxury in the best Berlin hotel. We can fly out as soon as they’ve confirmed you’re not in danger of puncturing a lung with those ribs.’

Jim rearranged his position slightly, drawing in breath at the sudden pain in his chest that the movement occasioned.

‘What about Liesl?’ he asked in a quieter voice, fixing his eyes on Rollin’s.

Rollin smiled again. ‘She’s just the other side of that door,’ he told Jim, nodding across the room. ‘She’s been waiting to see you.’

Jim looked across to the door, running his tongue over his dry lips. There was no way that this was going to be easy. It never was.

‘Will you tell her to come in?’ he asked Rollin quietly.

Rollin nodded, picking up his paper from the table and striding over to the door. A moment after he had left, Liesl entered, her face drawn with worry.

‘Otto, you are all right,’ she said, the concern suddenly ameliorated with a smile.

‘It’s Jim,’ he reminded her. ‘Jim Phelps. And I’m fine. Just some broken ribs. I’ve had worse.’

‘The others told me,’ she nodded, taking the seat that Rollin had been using and pulling it a little closer to his bed. ‘So, you will be going home soon,’ she said in a rather quieter voice. ‘Home to America.’

Jim gave her a half-smile. ‘I have to,’ he nodded.

‘I know,’ she said. Her lips looked a little tight, but to Jim’s relief she wasn’t crying. ‘I’ve talked a lot with your friend, Mr Hand, these two nights. I know you have to go back – what is it – being an agent? A super-spy?’

Jim smiled. ‘Something like that,’ he nodded. He had never had a precise job definition. ‘And you?’ he asked softly, feeling a spiking of regret in his chest. ‘You will stay here, in Berlin?’

‘Yes. I will be all right,’ she promised him. ‘Rollin sorted out everything – the asylum claim, the right to work, to live. It will all be fine. I’m looking for an apartment, and – well, they’re taking on typists in the newspaper offices where Rollin took his story,’ she added with a smile. ‘I think I will get a job there. They were very pleased with me when I spoke to them.’

‘That’s just fine,’ Jim said warmly, reaching out painfully to take her hand. ‘That’s fine, Liesl.’

He sat looking at her, at her long dark hair and dark eyes, at the kindness and experience in her face and the soft contours of her body. It would be so nice to just stay here for a while, to live without danger in a foreign city and spend a few long weeks with a girl like this. But that wasn’t his life, and he knew it. After a week he would be itching for the adrenaline rush again. His mind would be craving problems to solve and new places to see. It would never be fair on a girl to give her false hopes of a life that he just couldn’t settle into.

Liesl looked down at her watch and gave an apologetic smile.

‘I must go,’ she said. ‘I have an appointment with the hiring secretary at the paper to see if I got the job. I mustn’t be late for that.’

‘Too right you mustn’t,’ he said bracingly, squeezing her small hand with his large one, and then letting go. ‘Goodbye, Liesl, and good luck.’

She stood, and then bent down and gently kissed his bruised lips.

‘Goodbye, Jim Phelps,’ she said with a lingering look. ‘And I will always remember you.’

He watched her go as she walked out of the room, feeling the cloying artificial sleep of sedatives pulling at him again. He rested his head back into the pillow, accepting that he was bed-bound for the next couple of days and there was nothing he could do about it. It was a small price to pay for everything that had happened over the last few weeks, one that he would pay again in an instant. He drifted back to sleep with dreams of snow heaped up on the streets of New York, of sailing a boat on the East River with a dark-haired girl beside him, and of finding another of those so-enticing tape machines in a tackle box, with another impossible mission to complete.


End file.
